I spent a number of hours in
preparing the second in the series, brief series of messages on the
subject of biblical baptism from the 28th chapter of Matthew.
But because my mind and spirit have been so much filled with
far more weighty issues, as once again I and many of us have been
forced to face the inescapable reality of death I feel constrained
to speak to you along lines far more fitting with my own present
state of mind, and God willing I shall bring the second exposition
on the biblical doctrine of baptism as found in Matthew 28 at our
service next Lord's Day morning. I wish to direct to your conscience
a very simple and very pointed question tonight. The question
is simply this. Are you ready to die. Are you ready to die? And I address that question to
your conscience because our Lord Jesus clearly taught in the parable
of Luke 12, 13 to 21, that the man who lives no matter what other preparations
he makes for life, if in life he makes no solid preparation
to die, God calls him a fool. For you'll remember in that parable
which has as its major thrust a lesson against the sin of covetousness,
our Lord brings before us this statement, speaking of the rich
man who pulled down his barns to build others in order to enjoy
himself, Thou foolish one, this night thy soul shall be required
of thee. And so tonight every one of you
in this building is categorized a wise man, a wise boy, a wise
woman, a wise girl, not in terms of your IQ, not in terms of your
educational background or opportunities, not in terms of any knowledge
you've been able to acquire in any of the broad fields of human
learning. God says you are wise if you,
sitting here tonight, are prepared to die, and God calls you a fool
if you sit here unprepared to die. And so I'm addressing myself
very personally and pointedly to this great issue. Are you
ready to die? Or we could state the question,
are you a fool or are you wise? And as we would introduce some
of the materials from the Word of God that I wish to share with
you, I want to remind you of certain very unavoidable realities
with reference to the matter of death. When you look at the
familiar text in Hebrews 9 and verse 27, in the context the
writer to the Hebrews is elaborating on the finality of the death
of Christ, showing that by that one death he has secured eternal
redemption for the people of God. And as he looks for an illustration
to show this inseparable relationship between a once-for-all act and
an inevitable consequence, Christ's death once-for-all, the inevitable
consequence, completed salvation, he draws upon this inescapable
once-for-all fact and the inevitable consequence as his illustration.
In other words, the statement about death and judgment in this
passage is an illustration of a certain facet of the doctrine
of salvation. You see the parallel? Christ
was once offered, verse 28, having Once been offered for sin, the
inevitable consequence is, he shall appear a second time to
them that wait for him unto salvation. Now what does he use for his
illustration of something that happens once for all and always,
without exception, has an inevitable consequence? He uses the reality
of death and of judgment for his illustration. Hence verse
27. And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after
this cometh judgment, so Christ also, having once been offered,
shall come. Now you see, when a doctrinal
truth is so fundamental, so much accepted as a first principle
that a man can use it to illustrate another truth, it's all the more
powerful. He is not arguing to defend the
fact and the inevitability of death. He is not arguing to defend
that inescapable sequel to death called judgment. He assumes that
any man who has not seared his conscience and utterly turned
his back upon the revelation of God in nature or in the Word
of God will assume these as first principles. Isn't it a shame
that in our day they must be established once again? And from
this text I lay before you these basic principles. First of all,
the absolute certainty and unavoidableness of death. As it is appointed,
and you will notice in your marginal reading in the ASV, laid up for. It is precisely the word used
in Luke chapter 19 and verse 20, where the steward says, I
took thy pound and I wrapped it and I laid it up. It speaks
of putting something in a place of safekeeping. Something is
stored up. Something is laid up on our behalf. Colossians 1.5 speaks of the
inheritance which is laid up, which is the inevitable result
of God's work of salvation in His people. Paul uses it in 2
Timothy 4.8. Henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness. It is my inevitable inheritance.
My friend, there is something that God has laid up for every
one of the sons of Adam. It is the experience of death,
as it is laid up for men, once to die. And so death is the great
leveler of all human beings. And one of the most sobering
thoughts that comes to me, and I'm not a killjoy in this, I
hope I'm a biblical realist, When I go to visit the young
mothers in the hospital, and I'm taken to view their child
for the first time through the glass of the nursery window,
often I think, as I look into that little bundle of life that
has brought such joy to mom and dad, particularly when it's a
firstborn, and I say, what will life hold for you? And I'm drawn
back again and again to this simple fact. The only thing I
and the mom and dad know for certain about that baby is that
it shall die. That's all! That is all! We can't
say that it will be intelligent, we can't say that it will grow
to maturity, we can't say whether life will hold bliss or war,
but one thing we can say, it is laid up for that little bundle
of life to die. And it's all but what the scripture
calls a brief sigh between the joyous news of the birth of a
child and the sad news of the death of that same individual. Oh, you say, trying to snore,
my friend. These are hard, cold, unavoidable, inescapable facts. It is laid up for you to die. Face it, my friend. Your body,
upon which so much time and money is spent, will one day be eaten
by the worms. Oh, but I'm going to have the
S, oh yes, so you're going to put yourself in a very expensive
vault. It may delay the process, it
will be eaten by the worms. Thus thou art and thus thou shalt
return. And the spirit shall return to
God who gave it. is the teaching of the Word of
God. It is appointed, the absolute certainty and unavoidableness
of death. And my friend, the sooner we
stop looking away from it and face it squarely, the better
off we'll be. We don't talk about dying. We talk about passing on, passing
away, deceased. We die. It's appointed on the
man once to die. We fix up our debts so that they
look better than they did in life, but they're debts. They're debts and you ride upon
a silken coat, debts are debts, debts. God's presence of living
fathers will not change it, debts, debts, debts. It is upon the
men once to die. the absolute unavoidableness
of the experience of death. Then there is in this text the
inevitable sequel to death. Look at it. As it is appointed
unto men once to die, that rending of soul from body which constitutes
death, and after this cometh judgment, just as certainly as
Christ's death for sinners has its inevitable sequel of the
salvation of those sinners for whom he died. See the parallel? So death has its inevitable sequel. Judgment. As it is appointed
to die, so it is appointed to stand in judgment. We read that graphic depiction
of judgment as John had the vision, seeing the sea giving up its
dead in the grave's opening, and all of humanity standing
in the presence of the great God of heaven and earth. Judgment
is the inevitable sequel to death. That awesome day when we shall
stand in the presence of Him whose eyes are as a flame of
fire, who searches the innermost recesses of the heart, who knows
us through and through. And the scripture makes very
clear that as death leaves you, the judgment will find you. And as the judgment finds you,
eternity will hold you. And that's what makes it sobering,
my friends. Let me give it to you again.
As death leaves you, the judgment finds you. And there's no influence
of the burning of candles and the incantations of priests that
changes the state of the soul from death to judgment. Not a
one. As you die, you stand in judgment. As death leaves you, the judgment
will find you, and as the judgment finds you, eternity will hold
you. That's enough to take the most
giddy person in this building and shock him into sobriety.
If he but thinks upon it for a moment, it is appointed unto
men once to die. and after this the judgment.
Now in the light of the absolute certainty and unavoidableness
of death, it's appointed to die. The inevitable sequel to death,
judgment. Do you see why I press the question
upon your conscience tonight? Are you scripturally prepared
to die? Or are you a fool? I'm not asking,
do you hope that you're ready to die? Do you think that perhaps
you may be? I'm asking, can you face what
death is in the light of the Scriptures and what it means
to be prepared to die in the light of the Scriptures and say,
blessed be God, I am prepared to die. My friend, that's a very
practical question. For you see, the only man who
lives this day as he ought to live is the man who is prepared
to die this day. Now, to think out some lines
of biblical truth. I have two heads to our study
tonight. There is on the one hand an ill-founded
and deceptive confidence about death. Some of you may think
you're prepared to die, but it is an ill-founded and deceptive
confidence, and we want to examine it. And then secondly, there
is a well-founded and scriptural confidence in the face of death,
and we want to examine what it is. All right? First of all then,
an ill-founded and deceptive confidence as to one's preparedness
for death usually rests upon several things. First of all,
Many people have an unscriptural view of the nature of man, hence
they think they are ready to die. When they read in Ecclesiastes
that man is like the beast who dies, and they see this description,
take for instance the Jehovah's Witnesses, they say that means
exactly what it says. When the dog dies, that's the
end of him. When you die, that's the end of you. Ah, but you see,
That is not treating the subject of whether or not man is an immortal
creature, whether or not man has a never-dying soul. It's
speaking of man in his external experience, and in so many ways
he is like the beast. He comes and performs his task,
and he dies, and he is gone. But is that the whole story?
No, no, my friend. For Jesus said in Matthew 10
and verse 28, Fear not them which kill the body, and after this
have no more that they can do. But fear him who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna, in the lake of fire. Jesus Christ
taught that there is an entity of human personal existence called
the soul, conscious. thinking, willing, feeling soul. And there is an entity called
the body. And he says, don't fear them
who can destroy the physical organism, the body, but they
cannot touch this other reality, the soul. But fear him who can
destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. The Lord Jesus clearly
taught that all men who go into the graves shall come out of
the graves and stand in judgment. Listen to his words in the fifth
chapter of the Gospel of John, verses 28 and 29. Marvel not
at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the
graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth. They that have
done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done
evil unto the resurrection of judgment. What a tragedy that
the combined influence of evolution and of humanism and of rationalism
has well-nigh destroyed from the fabric of our present generation
this living awareness that this life is not the end of it all.
Man does not die like the beast and is done. No, no. You and I shall path on from
this world to stand in the presence of God in that world to enter
either that world of woe that we read from Revelation or that
world of bliss likewise described so graphically. My friend, listen
to me. Do you have, as it were, a sense
of preparedness to die because you think death is just one long
night of sleep that will never end? What will your excuse be
when you stand before God in judgment? And you say, I didn't
know that there was such a thing as judgment. And the judge of
the earth says, did you not sit in a chapel there in Essex Fells
and hear my word? The hour is coming in which all
shall come forth. Ah, yes, God, but I thought that
was the mere... I spoke you from my word. You
are without excuse. Dear boys, girls, men, and women,
listen. If you have a sense of well-being
in the face of death, if it's founded upon an unscriptural
view of what you are, I declare to you now, God is endowed you
with a soul that shall live forever, and that soul shall be joined
to a body that shall be forever in the presence of God, or in
banishment from His presence in the lake of fire. But on the
other hand, there are others who have a very settled confidence
as they face death, and they do believe that man has a soul,
that man is an immortal creature, but they are confident as they
face death because they have an unscriptural view of the nature
of God. Their problem is not an unscriptural
view of the nature of man. They say, oh yes, man is a creature
made in the image of God, and part of that image is that he
is endowed with endless existence. but they have an unscriptural
view of the nature of God. Their thinking goes something
like this, Oh yes, I have an immortal soul, and I'm not perfect,
I haven't done all that I should, but God is good, God is gracious,
and God has made all his creatures, and God loves all his creatures
sufficiently that in the end, love will prevail, and all will
ultimately look upon his face with bliss. As I heard even this
past week after seeking faithfully to preach the biblical doctrine
of death and hell and judgment and redemption, and as someone
expressed concern about these things to hear another relative
say, oh well, we need not worry. There is all kinds of forgiveness
with God. My friend, listen to me. If you
have a view of God that says, since I'm His creature, He loves
me too much to do anything other than make sure I'll be in a state
of bliss at last, listen to me, my friend, you're full of an
ignorance that will damn you. For that God who loves His creatures
with an infinite and indescribable love is the God of whom the Bible
speaks when it says, God is light, and in Him There is no darkness
at all. 1 John 1.6, Hebrews 3.12.31 says
this God is a consuming fire. He is the God who has created
hell for the devil and his angels. He has created a place and a
state in which to place and banish all those who would defy his
government. And he takes human sins so seriously
that he sent his son all the way from the indescribable bliss
and majesty of his presence to come to the confines of a virgin's
womb. to live amongst a sinful humanity
than to go to a cross and feel the billows and waves of his
anger break upon his holy health. Why? Because that God of love
is a God of light and a God of inflexible justice who takes
human sin very seriously. And you may sit here tonight
saying, oh, I'm prepared to die because I am resting in the wrath
of God's general benevolence and love, and I have nothing
to fear. My friend, you have everything to fear. But the Scripture
says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of this living
God, for He is a consuming fire. What have you to protect you
from the consuming fire of God's anger against sin? What have
you to insulate you against that fire? My friend, there is nothing
to insulate but the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. And unless and until you have
fled in repentance and faith to be clothed with that righteousness
and covered with that blood, You're exposed to the fiery wrath
and anger of a holy God. And you see, hell is not the
creation of a new attitude in God. Hell is simply the manifestation
of his present attitude to impenitent sinners. Think of it, my friend. God doesn't have to scurry around
to create and conjure up a new attitude in the day of judgment,
a new state. No, no! Hell is but the final
manifestation of the anger of God that burns to infinity sinners. You say you're ready to die?
Is that preparedness rooted in an unscriptural view of the nature
of God? If so, I pray that the Holy Ghost
will take the scriptures I've been quoting tonight and burn
them into your heart and constrain you to say, where, oh where do
I stand in the presence of such a holy God? Then in the third
place, there are people who have great confidence as they face
death But it's an ill-founded and deceptive confidence because
they have an unscriptural view of the nature of sin. Their problem
is not an unscriptural view of the nature of man, nor they see
that man is made to be a never-dying being. Nor is it primarily an
unscriptural view of the nature of God. They believe that God
is holy and that God must punish sin, but they have an unscriptural
view of the nature of sin. In other words, they reason like
this, oh yes, God is light. The passage you read to us, Mr.
Martin, says, they that have done evil will come forth to
the resurrection of damnation, but they that have done good
to the resurrection of life, and they say, I'm one of the
good ones. They have a defective view of the nature of sin. They
are like the Pharisee, who thinks that sin is to be found exclusively
in external acts. And as long as the Pharisee was
externally clean and moral, he could stand, as we read in Luke
chapter 18, and look up to heaven and say, I thank Thee, I'm not
like the rest of them. Extortioners, adulterers, murderers,
thieves, and these publicans. You see what his problem was?
He was confident that he was ready to die. But his confidence
was ill-founded because he had a defective and unscriptural
view of the nature of sin. The truth is, my friend, that
God measures sin not only in external deeds, but He measures
sin by any deflection from His holy law, starting with the first
springs of attitude and motive and thought, and then extending
to the activities of the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears,
and all the members of the body. You say, where do you find that?
Listen to the words of Jesus. Ye have heard that it was said,
Thou shalt not kill, but I say unto thee, Whosoever is angry
with his brother is in danger of the judgment. You see what
Jesus said? The commandment, thou shalt do no murder, does
not touch merely the pulling of a trigger or the plunging
of a knife into the heaving breath of a living human being. No,
no. The attitude of anger, of viciousness,
Jesus said, is a breach of that commandment. He had heard that
it was said, thou shalt do no or commit no adultery. But I
say unto you, whoso looketh with an intent to lust, hath committed
adultery already in his heart. You see why you think you're
prepared to die? You think that your external deeds, more of
them are good than evil, and that may be true if you view
the deed in itself, and you're confident you're ready to die
because you say, my good will outweigh my bad. And my friend,
that's rooted in unscriptural view of the nature of sin. Let's
take your so-called good things. Are they really good? Oh, you
say, yes, I pay my bills. Why? Well, because I was brought
up that it's the right thing to do, yes. But you see, your
motive rises no higher than yourself, and your very good deeds are
sin, because the Scripture says, whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. Whatsoever is not done to the
glory of God is sin. Anything that begins with you
and terminates upon you is of the earth and sin. The essence of sin is living
to yourself. Now you may live a good moral
life, but if the motive in you is simply yourself, your good
deeds are wickedness. That's why the prophet Isaiah
could say, we do all faith as a leaf and all our righteousnesses,
our good things, are as filthy rags. Isaiah 64. Oh my friend, if you sit here
tonight, confident that you're prepared to die? Could it be
that your confidence is rooted in an unscriptural view of the
nature of sin? If it is, may God strip it away. May the scriptures quoted even
now come like rapiers and cut through the bones of your self-righteous
heart and lay bare that seething cauldron of putrid uncleanness
that God sees and God knows is there. And I begin to see that
the standard of holiness is God Himself. Be ye holy as I am holy. Then I see that amidst my best
endeavors there is the taint of sin. And I realize unless
something happens to me and something is done for me that touches the
deepest springs of my being, I'm not prepared to die and stand
before God in judgment. But then in the fourth place,
There are people who have an ill-founded and deceptive confidence
that they are ready to die because they have an unscriptural view
of the nature of salvation. They may be quite straight on
the nature of man, he is immortal. Quite straight on the nature
of what sin is. Quite straight, as we've already
considered, on what the nature of God is, that He is holy, and
there must be forgiveness and cleansing, but their problem
is they have an unscriptural view of the nature of salvation.
They think themselves saved when they are not. They will use the
term saved. They will use the terms forgiven.
And perhaps the three biggest errors, and I've tried to reduce
them to the ones that would be possibly most prevalent here
tonight, may I suggest what they are? The first one is the era
of universalism. Oh yes, men are all sinners.
Men are sinners in thought, word, and deed. But the Bible says,
as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive. It's
the era of universalism. That salvation by God will be
as extensive as the creation of God. And if He's created billions
of human beings, He will save billions down to the last one. Oh, my friend, there is no greater
lie than this. It is a flat contradiction of
the explicit statements of Holy Scripture at point after point.
You remember what we read from the book of the Revelation? John
is describing with rapture the state of the redeemed, gods who
wipe away tears from their eyes, no more death, no more sorrow,
but without! But without are the whoremongers,
the sorcerers, the idolaters. He shows that there will always
be the separation of the righteous and the unrighteous. Jesus, in
that great description of the Day of Judgment in Matthew 25,
under the figure of sheep and goats, says, These shall go away
into everlasting life, I only am Zoe. These who go away into
everlasting punishment, I only own connoisseurs, eternal punishment,
eternal life, strict parallels, as long as the unending life
of the saints goes on in glory, the unending existence of the
wicked shall go on with dread and with horror. You've got some
wishful thinking. that God will ultimately save
all His creatures, then you make a liar of the Son of God, for
He said of certain people it were better for them they had
never been born. Better, He says, that we could
unborn them than that they shall go to that state of ultimate
and fixed eternal woe. If any man should pass through
a billion years of suffering, if he shall ultimately enter
glory and be in glory for eternity, it would be good for him that
he were born. The fact that Jesus said it is good that he had never
been born is an eloquent testimony to the fact that universalism
is a lie. But then there is a more subtle
error and it comes perhaps closer to home. It's the error of sacramentalism. There are people who are confident
they're ready to die. Why? Because they've had the
right things done to them at the right time by the right person
in the right place. You say, what are you talking
about? All right, let me illustrate.
I have gone as a babe in the arms of my parents to the priest,
who in the right way, at the right time, in the right place,
did the right thing to me, and because I was baptized, I was
christened, my original sin was taken away, and now I continue
to go to the right place, at the right time, and do the right
things, and I say penance, and I say my rosaries, and I do this
and do that, and my ecclesiastical system says, oh! My friend, that's
sacramentalism. And it's a damning delusion.
And there's evangelical sacramentalism as well. Perhaps there's been
no group that has maintained the doctrine of justification
by faith with greater clarity than Lutheranism. But what an
abominable sacramental leaven is in their teaching. That God
has conveyed grace through the water. That the orders of baptism
actually convey grace. So that when a good Lutheran
dies, no matter how impenitent he was, it is perfectly proper
to take the rubric of funeral services and say that so and
so was made a member of the kingdom of heaven through baptism and
pull out his baptismal record and read the date and comfort
everyone that he is now in heaven when he may be in hell. Sacramentalism. Oh, am I talking to someone tonight
who feels all is well. because you had the right thing
done to you in the right way by the right person at the right
time. Ah, listen to me, my friend. Listen to the teaching of the
Word of God, not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy He saved us. Except a man be born
of the Spirit, there must be living contact with the living
God by the life-giving Spirit, not contact with the right hands
in the right building at the right time in the right place.
But then there is perhaps even the more subtle form of delusion
on the matter of salvation. It's what I'm calling decisionism.
Oh, I don't believe all that stuff. Not saved by your baptism.
Not saved by your church membership. I'm saved by this. But I have
made my decision for Christ. I did it. And the moment I did
it, that fixed me up for eternity. I have no fears of death ever
since. Why? Because I did it. Oh, how many
times as a pastor my heart has bled as I've talked with loved
ones, who perhaps are people, Christian people, who had a loved
one, who was coming near that inevitable experience of death,
and as I've sought wisely to draw forth whether there was
any grounds to console them with Christian consolation, I said,
do you have reason to believe that he or she is a true believer,
that he or she is in Christ, and how I've heard these words
that made me shudder. Oh yes, she did that years ago. Oh yes, He did that years ago. He did that. You see what they're
saying? They went through some motions of a decision, a profession. I'm not asking if they did something
years ago. My question is, is it evident
that God did something and joined them to His Son? Has there been
evidence of divine life in the soul? The curse of decisionism is that
it causes people to rest upon an act performed in the past
instead of upon a relationship that is vibrant and lit in the
present. I remember one man, full-time
Christian worker. We got talking about matters
of this nature and he said, well, for me, I know whenever I have
doubts about my salvation, When I don't see the evidences of
grace in my life, I go back to the time when at 12, I accepted
the Lord. I go back to the time when I
accepted the Lord. What a frightening thing. What's
the difference between that and the Roman Catholic who says,
I go back and take out my baptismal and my confirmation record? The
person who holds a wrong view of the nature of the baptismal
act in a covenantal framework and who goes back to his baptismal
register. What's the difference, friends?
There's no difference. It's resting upon a human act
performed. And if you have confidence that
you're ready to die because of the error of universalism or
sacramentalism or decisionism, my friend, you have an ill-founded
hope. Now let me turn to the positive.
What is a well-grounded scriptural confidence that you're prepared
to die? And it's only the person who
has this who has any right to think of death with anything
other than dread and horror. Well, we could look at many passages,
but I want to look at one little phrase that to me says everything.
Turn please to Revelation 14, 13. Revelation 14 and verse 13. And I heard a voice from heaven
saying, right, blessed, that is perfectly happy. You can't
describe this word, blessed. It takes into it happiness, but
it's more than happiness. Tranquility, but it's more than
tranquility. Fulfillment, but it's more than
that. It's all of those things thrown into one plus more. It
describes man's capacity fully realized by the grace of God.
That's blessedness. Blessed. are the dead who die
in the Lord. That's it. That's it. Blessed
are they who die in the Lord. You see what it's doing? It's
not pointing to an act performed. It's pointing to a relationship
established. Blessed are they who die in the
Lord. They are the ones who are truly
prepared to die, who when death comes, it finds them in the Lord,
vitally joined to Jesus Christ, the Lord, in a union which death
cannot sever, but to which death itself has become subservient. May I give you that again? A
union which death cannot sever, but to which death itself has
become subservient. Now, who are these people that
are in Christ, and how did they get that way? Blessed are those
who die in the Lord. Not those who die knowing something
about Him. Not those who believe things
about Him, who've made some decision with reference to Him, who love
His church, who love His ordinances, who admire His ethics. No, no.
Blessed are those who die in the Lord. Now, how did they come
to that state? Well, the first thing we must
establish is they weren't in that state by nature. The Bible
says by nature we are in Adam. We're in a state of death, a
state of alienation, the carnal mind is enmity against God, and
no man was ever brought to the state of being in the Lord till
God first of all awakened him to the fact that he was out of
the Lord. For Jesus said, I did not come to call the righteous
but sinners to repentance. The first work of the Spirit
of God in testifying of Christ, when He has come, He'll reprove
the world's sin. He brings us to the realization
inwardly and experientially that we are out of Christ, out of
life, alienated from God in a state of guilt and depravity, of bondage
and of death. And no man was in Christ simply
because he woke up one morning and the sun looked nice and he
imagined himself a believer. Though the Spirit of God works
sovereignly the ways of the Spirit are like the wind, He works by
means of the truth, and He deals with us as rational creatures
made in the image of God. And His first work is to awaken
us to see our need of Christ. Now the measure, the depth, the
extent, the manifestation of that awakening will differ with
every individual. In a little child, He may be
awakened to his sense of need by something so mundane as his
fear of the dark. He senses, well, I know God's
everywhere, but I'm afraid of the dark. Why am I afraid of
the dark? Because I don't know the God
who is everywhere. And God can use a little thing
like that in a child to begin to turn him to seek the Lord. And in a child, many times the
first evidence that they've come into experimental acquaintance
with Christ is, they're no longer afraid of the dark. They say,
I know Jesus is with me. Very simple. Ah, but you see,
the principle is there. Awaken to the sense of need of
this One, who alone is light and power and grace and forgiveness. It may be that God will use some
human tragedy. God may use a thousand and one
things, but the Scripture makes clear that Christ has come to
save sinners, and until we see ourselves the sinners that we
are, we are never brought into Christ. And the second thing
that God does is He illuminates us as to God's way of accepting
sinners. Not only does He show us we're
not in Christ and we need to be, He shows us how. we can be found in Christ. The work of the Gospel, then,
is the work of proclaiming the facts of Christ, who He is, what
He's done, the preaching of the cross, preaching Christ crucified,
and the Spirit then illuminates the mind which before saw no
beauty in Christ. We see now that in Christ crucified
risen, pleading at the right hand of the Father, is all our
hope and all our desire. And then thirdly, he enables
us to embrace Christ in repentance and faith. Repentance, the analogy
of marriage, came home to me so forcefully a week ago Saturday. Repentance is the forsaking of
all others, leaving father and mother, the existing sphere of
government for the young man and woman in which they've lived
from birth. God says a man shall leave his
father and mother and cleave to his wife, come under a new
sphere of relationship and government and delight. So it is in embracing
the Savior. There must be the leaving that
sphere of government in which we existed from birth, in which
my will, my plans, my desires were central. Living to myself,
there must be a leaving of it. Repentance toward God and a cleaving
to the Lord Jesus to be my Savior, to be my Sovereign, to be my
life, to be my all in all, to be His and He to be mine and
that forever. That's how one is joined to the
Lord. One is espoused to Christ in the vows of repentance and
faith. Now, my friend, those who die
in the Lord, that's how they got into that state. God awakened
them to their need. He showed them His glory in the
face of Christ crucified, enabled them to repent and to believe,
and they received new life from Christ. If any man be in Christ,
in the Lord, he is a new creation. You see, heaven is the new creation,
and God's making new creations to fit the new creation. What
is heaven without the redeemed people of God? So He is making
all things new and fitting a new people for a new heavens and
a new earth. Blessed are they who die in the
Lord. I ask you tonight, are you in
the Lord? I like that phrase, are you in
the Lord? By a living faith, by a true
repentance, are you in the Lord? If so, my friend, you are blessed
of all peoples of the earth, for you are ready to die. And
because you are ready to die, you are prepared to live tomorrow
like no one else can live who is not in the Lord. I want to
close by bearing down on this very practical matter for the
believer. Do you know precisely what death
can and cannot do to you? Well, let me introduce some closing
thoughts by reading three statements of the Lord Jesus with reference
to death, and they're all from the Gospel of John. John chapter
5 is the first, and then we'll look at one in John 8 and one
in John 11. In John 5 and verse 24 we read,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh
not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life." In this
verse, Jesus says that union with Him by faith takes us totally
out of the realm of death and into the realm of life. Death
has no more to do with us. Ah, but you say, wait. All right,
hold off. I know what your question is, but hold off on it. Now look
at the second text in John chapter 8 and verse 51. John 8.51, I
am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If any man
eat of this bread, see the matter of relationship eating a present
activity. Not if anyone had a snack twenty
years ago. If anyone eats of this bread,
those in Christ feed upon Christ. He shall live forever. Yea, and the bread which I give
is my flesh for the life of the world. He says he'll live forever. He's entered into and ushered
upon eternal life. Death is no longer in his realm.
Now look at 11 of John, verses 25 and 26. John 11, 25, 26, on
the occasion of the resurrection of Lazarus, or the raising him
from the dead. Verse 25. Jesus said unto her,
I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me,
though he die, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Now, doesn't there seem to be
a contradiction? Jesus says that living relationship
with him in faith negates the power of death. Well, this is
what you must understand. Death in the Bible is spoken
of as the judgment of God upon man's sin. In the day that thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now involved in that death,
of course, is incipient death, the sickness of the body, physical
death, the separation of soul from body, eternal death, the
lake of fire, but all aspects in their judicial, judgmental
sense, God the judge meeting the sentence of death upon man
the sinner. Now when Jesus said, he that
believes in me shall never die, he's saying that death as a judicial
act of God, will never be meted out upon the believer. Why? Because judicially Jesus Christ
tasted death for every man, that is every son whom he is bringing
to glory in the context of Ephesians of Hebrews chapter 2. You see
what he is saying? Death as a judicial punishment
for sin, which means the present afflictions the separation of
soul from body as an act of judgment, preparatory to the final casting
into the lake of fire, Jesus Christ has taken all of that
sting of death on our behalf, for the sting of death is sin,
and the strength of sin is in the Lord, and Christ has satisfied
the Lord. So what are our afflictions now?
They're the chastisements of a loving father, not the strokes
of an angry judge. We fear no future punishment.
Why? Christ brought our hell. But
now get this, believer, and even death's mission in the separation
of the soul and the body is no longer a judgmental act of God. Death has been brought to be
his subject, to loose us, to look upon his face with bliss.
That's why he could say, he that believes in me shall never die.
If all death can do is loose you to look upon the face of
Jesus and to love him without sin, that's no judicial act,
is it? That's an act of mercy. That's
an act of blessing. To loose me in the words of Pauline
thinking, from this body of humiliation. To loose me from this earthly
tabernacle. In this we do wrong, is the word
of the apostle. so that I may face death with
a totally new perspective. Get the imagery. Prior to being
in Christ, when I saw death, if I saw him biblically, I saw
him armed to the teeth with the weapons of my destruction. In
one hand was the saber of God's holy law which I had broken,
and death could come and run me through. In His mouth was
the dagger of divine indignation against my pollution and my rebellion,
and with it He could slay me. I look upon death, in the words
of Hebrews 2, all my lifetime afraid of death, afraid that
I may turn the corner and death may be there, armed to the teeth
to rinse my soul and body and fix me in a state where I shall
experience eternal death. God help you if you are out of
Christ and you don't fear death. He may be there behind that corner. He may be sitting in the pew
next to you. And he unleashes his weapons
not at your will, but at the will of the God who has appointed
unto men once to die. Someone conveyed the news tonight
of the death of a grandfather who would have been a hundred
and one at his next birthday. In the very place Or I had to
preach this Tuesday. They had to lay to rest a six-year-old
girl. Death lurks! No better persons! When God says, Seize the sinner! Death are 13 times! And Seize
the sinner! And he's never been denied his
prey. Now I look at death as he comes to me from the summons
of God, and what do I see? I don't see an enemy armed to
the teeth with weapons to destroy me. I see him coming with a packet
under his arms, sealed orders. And those orders say, release
this saint who is joined to my Son, that he may look upon the
face of his Savior with joy. And I can look death right in
the eye and say, you've got no dagger to pierce me through,
but Father took the dagger from your hand and pierced his son
and threw it away. You've got no axe with which
to pierce me. All you can do is release me
to look upon the face of my Savior, for to be absent from the body
is to be present with the Lord. What a prospect we can have of
death, the actual experience of death. Sure, there's an element
of the frightening nature. We've never been down that road,
but we have the promise that He shall be with us and that
death has been made subject to Him. Through death He destroyed
him that had the power of death and delivered us who perceive
death. We are in our lifetime subject
to bondage. We have in our record collection
at home a record given to us by a dear missionary to South
America. And it's the collection of a
series of poems by a black poet who lived from 1871 to 1938,
James Weldon Johnson. And these are poetic sermons. And with Fred Waring's choral
group doing the background music and choral work, they have two
excellent readers. And one of the sermons that has
profoundly influenced me and has etched its way into the channels
of my mind is the one on death. And I wish I could, I even toyed
with the idea, but it would have, for some who were visiting, think
we were given to sensationalism, so I didn't do it. I was thinking,
I'd love to put it on tape and just play it for you. But in
this particular part of the sermon, Mr. Johnson pictures death in
a very graphic and imaginary way. Death is summoned to the
great white throne of God and given a summons to go down to
Yom Kippur, Georgia to fetch Sister Caroline. And God says
to death, she's borne the heat of the day and she's toiled and
now she's weary and it's time to bring her home. Then it speaks
of death leaving the presence of God and jumping upon his white
charger. And as he rides out of the courts
of heaven, his hoofs strike sparks and they look like meteors in
the sky. And down, down, down he comes. And he finds Sister
Caroline. And he takes Sister Caroline.
And then Mr. Johnson goes on to describe.
He lays her gently upon his arm. And death goes up beyond the
morning star, up beyond the evening star, out into that glittering
light of glory. And then death laid Sister Caroline. upon the loving breast of Jesus. And then he depicts how Jesus
says, take your rest now, take your rest now. And that little
phrase, death laid sister Caroline upon the loving breast of Jesus. My friend, the summons going
to go from the throne of God for this preacher someday. And
death is going to come, not to wrench my soul and body as a
judicial act of judgment because of my sin, not to wrench soul
from body to await the day of judgment and final consignment
to hell, but hallelujah, death can only take me up beyond the
morning star, up beyond the evening star, and out to that glittering
light, glory, and lay me on the loving breast of Jesus. Blessed are they who die in the
Lord. Oh, my friend, are you ready
to die? Are you ready to die? Are you ready to die? You say, I just don't... I'm asking you, are you ready
to die? And you say, I believe so. Well, then my second question
is, is it an ill-founded, deceptive confidence Or is it a well-grounded
biblical confidence? Which is it? I don't want to
think. I know you don't want to think
about it, but I love you enough and you are polite enough to
sit here and not get angry and storm out of here. And while
I have you for the moment, may the Spirit of God direct you,
my friend, as you are ready to die. God grant. that you will flee
to Christ, who bore the sins of an innumerable company, that
they might be prepared to die. Flee to Him. Cry to Him for mercy. Believe on Him. Repent and believe
the gospel. And I say to you who are in Christ,
oh, what a responsibility we have to our loved ones, to our
neighbors. If I'm speaking to any in the
Christian ministry, God have mercy on you if you don't speak
plainly about death. God help you if you galley and
pious little muttons that have a smattering of the gospel. We're
dying men living in the midst of death, preaching against the
backdrop of death. And God help us if we go to the
judgment red with the blood of the souls of men. Are you ready to die? In Christ
you are. Out of Christ you are. Where
are you? Let us pray. O God, our Heavenly Father, how
grateful we are for the Scriptures. This King of terrors, as He is
so often called, would hold nothing but terror for us did we not
know who He was and what He could do in the light of the Word of
God. And, O Father, with all our hearts
we plead tonight for children, men and women in this building
who are not prepared to die because they are not in Christ. O God,
disturb them. Give them no rest. Give them
no peace. Lord, in mercy, track them down. until they see themselves and
see your glory in the face of Christ and repent and believe
the gospel. And, O Father, those of us who
are in Christ, who once knew those terrible terrors at the
thought of death, how we thank you we can face Him squarely
in the eye tonight, and though He may bluff And though we may
snarl, Lord, we thank you, we know what he can and cannot do
to us. Oh, we ask that as your people,
we may make it evident to the world that we have this hope
that they know nothing of, that we may be faithful in conveying
it in so living that they may see the reality of our union
with Christ. Destroy the errors that we've
exposed tonight by the power of your word, for you've said
it's a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Lord, we cry
to you. May this word not fall to the
ground. Oh, may we meet in that day of
great gathering, those who mark this night as the night when
they began in earnest to prepare to die. Hear us, O God, our Heavenly
Father, and be pleased to answer us for the sake and for the honor
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Before we are dismissed,
I do want to make it evident, particularly for those visiting
amongst us, our own people know this. When one lives amongst
the people for eleven years, at least a few things come through.
My concern is not simply to preach sermons. And if God has arrested
you tonight and you tremble even to leave those doors until you
know that all is right between you and your God, you'll not
be imposing on us at all to say, Mr. Martin, could I talk with
you about these issues? I need further light from the
word of God. I need help. It would be our privilege to
open up the scriptures to you. And if God has given you light,
my friend, you don't need human aid. You call upon the Lord right
there where you sit. In calling, He will save you
even as He has promised.