Well, my text this morning is
Psalm 116, the psalm that we read, and verse 15, which reads,
precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. We live in an age where people
seemed always recently to be talking about increased longevity. We're living longer, people are
living longer, and it's a good thing, though I think I've often
said that if my last five years on this earth end up anything
like the last five years of my own father, then I'd gladly forego
that pleasure, because it wasn't very good. Might well live into
your 90s, but when bodily functions completely stop, then it's not
a very pleasant existence. But anyway, people in general
were saying, people are living longer, much, much longer, and
what a good thing it is. But we've just lived through
a period of this coronavirus crisis, and whether we can believe
the figures or not I'm not 100% sure, but they tell us that during
this spring period there have been in this country 55,000 more
deaths than you would normally expect on average. Taking the
average over the previous five years of the same period of the
year, In this year, there have been 55,000 more deaths. Now
you say, what a shocking figure. Let's just put it in perspective.
There have been years, not very long ago, when there were that
many more than the average, due to flu and other things, etc. But there have been excessive
deaths this year, it seems. Undertakers, apparently, funeral
directors, have been stretched with too much work. Too many
bodies to bury and cremate. And when you think about it,
think about it. Every one of those that has died
is a life that is as valuable to them and their family, their
loved ones, their near ones, as yours or mine is to us. They're
valuable. All these lives are valuable.
And death is such a tragedy. You think about it. You think
about the baby is born, and grows up through childhood, and goes
through all sorts of bumps and scrapes and lessons, and learns,
and grows up, and maybe marries, and has children, and a career,
and experience, and intelligence, and creativity, and all sorts
of things, all built up, and in a moment it's ended. In a
moment, it is ended. As someone once said there, the
only certainties in life are death and taxes, the taxes we
have to pay. It's as David said, David, when
he was still quite young, when Saul was king in Israel and David
was clearly the one who was God's anointed, and David said to Jonathan,
the son of Saul, David said to him, there is but a step between
me and death. were close to death all the time.
There is but a step between me and death. As it says in verse
3 of this psalm that David wrote, the sorrows of death compassed
me. Of course, it was David's own
experience at the time, but it's also the words of Christ. The
sorrows of death compassed him when he, as a man, stood in the
place of his people. We know what it's like. We live
in a realm of death, and as Hebrews says, as I often quote Hebrews
2.15, about those who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. It's a fear. People naturally
shy away from the thought of death. What will another year
bring? What will it bring? What do we
know? Do we know anything about it? We don't. Will it bring my
death? You say, oh, don't say things
glibly. I say it like that because I know who holds the future. I know in whose hands my life
is held. It is his to give, it is his
to take away. Will the next year bring my death?
Will it bring your death? Don't go saying, oh, I'm young,
it can't possibly. It can do, it can do. There are
plenty that do. Will it bring my death? Because
be sure what the Scripture says in Ecclesiastes, to everything
there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die. Will this next year be my
time to die? Will it be your time to die?
We know it's appointed to man to die once and then the judgment. in the past, in history, down
the years, as precious as we see life to be, yet to certain
national leaders, life is cheap. I'm talking about people like
Napoleon Bonaparte, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Hitler, Adolf Hitler,
Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot, all these people, and many, many more like
them. To them, in their great positions
of power, life was cheap and expendable. It wasn't valuable,
it was cheap. The death of some, the death
of many, was a price worth paying for the greater good. Oh, it's
good that we get rid of all these people, that, you know, they're
just a blight on society. Society will be the better without
them. Therefore, their lives were cheapened and they were
murdered. by the edict of these great leaders. And further in the past, those
who martyred the saints, indeed it goes on these days in some
parts of the world, where they said, those in authority, let's
rid society of these people because society will be the richer if
we get rid of them. Their life is of no value. these
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, these purveyors of this gospel
of His grace. Their lives are of no value,
they just make society an unpleasant place. Let's kill them, let's
get rid of them, let's do violent, dreadful things to them. Let's
get rid of them and enrich society as a result. You see, life, in
a sense, is incredibly valuable, and we ought not to treat it
lightly. But then in other ways, it just seems like it's just
cast away, as if it's nothing at all. But you know, that isn't
the same for all deaths. And in verse 15 of Psalm 116,
we read that precious in the sight of the Lord is the death
of his saints. Precious. Precious in the sight
of the Lord, in the opinion of the Lord, in the reckoning of
the Lord. The death of his saints is precious
to him, precious of value. Something of value is precious
to you. The death of his saints is precious to the Lord. That
which is such a tragic loss to society in general, you know,
all the excess deaths that I've been talking about in the current
situation, that which is such a tragic loss to society in general,
we're told here, is precious to God in the case of his saints. Why? Why is that the case? Why is the death of his saints
precious to him? Answer? Because each death answers
the prayer of Jesus. Which prayer of Jesus? The prayer
that he prayed in John 17, verse 24. He prayed this, Father, I
will that they also whom thou hast given me, that's his people,
That's his saints, that's his elect. I will that they also,
whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory. If you're a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, if you're one of the ones that the Father gave
to the Lord Jesus Christ before the beginning of time, that the
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to redeem from the curse
of the law by being made that curse for you, whose precious
blood was shed and paid the price of justice for your sins, that
your sins might be cleansed away, that you might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. The will of the Lord Jesus Christ
concerning you, if you're one of those people, is not that
you continue here, but that you're with Him, where He is, in eternal
glory, that you may behold His glory. What must it be to behold
the glory of the Creator? What must it be? We look out
at nature on a beautiful summer's morning and we look and we're
amazed because our God has made all things. We look up at the
stars at night. When I consider the works of the heavens, says
the psalmist, all the stars that you've made, what is man that
you're mindful of? When I consider all of these
things, what a glorious thing it is to look on. But what must
it be to behold the glory of our God in the Lord Jesus Christ
in eternal glory, where He is now. So, let's think about these
things. This death that is precious in
the sight of the Lord, this death of the saints, is first of all,
it's death of a different kind to death that's generally about
us in society. You see, death itself is terrible,
isn't it? Death is terrible. You think
about it, you're On one occasion, you're talking to that person,
you're communing with that person, you're interacting with one another,
you love that person, you like the company of that person, you
meet, you cross paths, whatever it might be, and then all of
a sudden, just in a day, in a moment, There's a corpse. There's an
empty shell. There's a dead body. And that
dead body, the life has gone from it. And that dead body cannot
hear your conversation. And that dead body cannot speak
to you anymore. It cannot eat the food that it
enjoyed or drink the wine that it enjoyed. It cannot do any
of these things because it's a corpse. And where once there
was life, there's just a dead body. And decay sets in. Remember, what a life is, what
a human life is. You know, again, the psalmist
tells us, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm fearfully
and wonderfully made. What a magnificent thing is the
creation of man, and yet there it is, it's decaying. It's returning
again back to the dust from which it's made, back to the basic
elements of the earth from which it's made. Dust you are, said
God to Adam, and to dust you shall return. And you see this
one that you were once talking with, dead and dying and decaying
and returning to the dust. And you think back to all of
the conversations and times you had, and it's a shocking thing
in that sense. It's terrible. but for saints. For saints, it is not death to
die. It isn't. It is not death to
die. What are saints? Let's be clear. Let's be clear about this. It's
not as false religion defines saints, but as God says. Look, I've written down eight
things that are the marks of saints according to the word
of God. Saints means set apart. Set apart. Number one, set apart
by God because they're chosen of God before the beginning of
time. by the grace of God. Jesus said,
you didn't choose me, I chose you. God chose his people in
Christ before the foundation of the world. Chosen of God before
time. Secondly, this is a people, these
saints, these set apart ones, are given to Christ in the covenant
of grace. They're given to him. They're,
thirdly, they're people that are set apart for God's service
during this world. They're betrothed to Christ in
eternal union. They're put in union with Him,
a marriage union, a betrothal, and we're heading towards the
marriage supper of the Lamb in eternity when all things will
be brought together. But they're betrothed to Christ,
they're in union with Him. He is entirely responsible for
these, His people, before the justice and law of God. And as
a result, He came into this world and took upon Him the flesh and
the blood of His people, the bones and the sinews of His people,
in the likeness of sinful flesh. that he might die the death that
is due to the sins of his people in order to satisfy the justice
of God, that he might redeem, buy back, pay the ransom price,
pay the release price from the law's curse. And he did that
for his people. Sixth, these are the people,
these saints, who because of what Christ has done, their sins
are put away. They're put away. He's taken
them away. He's removed them as far as the
east is from the west. And because of that, He has made
His people the righteousness of God in Him. You know, He who
knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. And as a result, His people,
His saints, His elect, the multitude that no man can number, is qualified,
is made meet, made fitted, made suitable for heaven. We're made
fitted for heaven. We don't have to make ourselves
fit for heaven. It's not a task that we are given
to do. He has made his people fit for heaven. So whatever role
in the church, in the company of believing people we might
have, we're all brought to the same level because all are saints.
There are not some who are saints and other believers who are not.
There's not those that the Pope decides are saints and the rest
are not. No, all those who believe the
Lord Jesus Christ, all those who know the power of His redeeming
love, all those who have heard the Gospel preached and by sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth demonstrate that they are
loved of God from before the beginning of time. All of them
are brought to the same level. The great preacher of a couple
of hundred years ago, William Huntington, the old coal heaver,
the one who was hated, who was cursed as an antinomian because
he preached the true gospel of grace. He used to mark himself,
you know, like, I can actually put after my name, you know,
I can put my name and then BSC, Bachelor of Science, because
that's the degree I got from university. But William Huntington,
used to sign himself William Huntington SS. SS? Sinner Saved. What are you? I'm
just a sinner who's saved. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all, and Jesus Christ is my all in all. So a great preacher,
a great pastor, an elder, a tireless deacon, a missionary, All are
equal in grace. All are brought down to the same
level. Sinners saved. The penitent thief on the cross
next to Christ was made a saint of God. He is a saint. He is
brought to believe and see the truth of redeeming grace that
saved him from his sins so that Christ could say to him with
full confidence, verily, verily, I say to you, this day you shall
be with me in paradise. Now the death of each and every
one of these saints of God, and if you're a believer, if you're
a believer, you're a saint of God, and when you die, your death
will be precious in God's estimation. I don't care how highly valued
you are, or how lowly valued you are in the estimation of
others. Your death as a saint is a personal treasure to the
living God. No difference who we are, no
difference at all. Whether your beloved brother
Don Faulkner, who left us three and a half weeks ago, just three
and a half weeks, and how difficult it is for those left behind,
yet he has gone into that presence. He is there. The prayer of the
Lord Jesus Christ concerning him is answered, that he is with
him. beholding His glory. From Don Fortner, such a fruitful
servant of the Living God, the colossal amount of writings that
he produced, the sermons he preached, the places he went to proclaim
the truth, And yet, at the other end of the spectrum, though it
isn't really because it's all the same, is Happy Jack, who's
a poor sinner and nothing at all, to whom Jesus Christ is
his all in all. It makes no difference who. It
makes no difference when in life. The death of a young saint, the
death of a middle-aged saint, the death of an old saint. It's
all precious to our God. It doesn't matter where or how
the death takes place. The place of it. Where is it?
Doesn't matter. In a holy place or an unholy
place. Of course, there's no such thing. There's no difference.
In an accident or in sickness or in disaster or in war. doesn't
matter what type of death it is, who, when, where or how,
all are precious in the sight of God. So why is the death of
God's saints of such a different kind? The answer is, because
for a believer, death is not because of sin's penalty. For
people without Christ, Death is the just wages of sin. You
know what Paul says in Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our
Lord. For the unbeliever, death is the just wages of sin. In
the day that you eat thereof, said God to Adam, you shall surely
die. The soul that sins, it shall
die. Death For the unbeliever is God's
justice enacted. It's the first death, and then
comes the second death after the judgment. But for the believer,
the one given faith to see redemption accomplished in the legal accounting
of God, there is no sin to be paid for with death. For Christ
has died for his people, for his saints. His precious blood
has paid the price of their sin, their sin debt to the law of
God. Believers have died the death due to their sins in Christ,
when He died. So Paul wrote in Galatians 2
verse 20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live,
yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of, of, of, not in,
not my faith in, His faith, His faithful doing. I live by the
faith of Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave Himself for me. And so, what's the result of
that? Listen to this, Romans 8, 33 and 34. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? There isn't a charge to answer.
If you're a saint of God, there isn't a charge to answer. The
law of God is not calling for your death as a punishment for
your sin, because it's punished already in the Lord Jesus Christ.
No, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It
is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is
Christ that died. Satan tries to condemn, but Satan
cannot. Satan is disarmed in his accusations. He who is the accuser of the
brethren is completely stripped of his weapons by the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Christ that died, he says,
yea, rather, that is risen again. He is the firstfruits. And if
He is risen from the dead, so shall we who are in Him rise
from the dead. He who is even at the right hand
of God, who also makes intercession for us. God is perfectly just. God is perfectly just. God cannot
punish the same sin twice. He cannot punish your sin if
you're a saint. He's punished it in Christ. He
cannot punish it again in you. As Toplady wrote in his hymn,
payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand and then again at mine. If Christ has died for you, that's
it. Your penalty is paid. Your death
is not a punishment for sin. The fear of death is gone for
saints. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
15 and a few verses there. Verse 54. This is the chapter
about the resurrection and about the certainty of it and how some
said there was no resurrection and how empty that left them
and of all men most miserable having followed Christ if there's
no resurrection. But there is a resurrection is
the point that Paul is making. So if we pick it up in verse
54 of 1 Corinthians 15 he says So when this corruptible, that's
this body that is going to decay like all bodies do when they
die, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption in eternal
glory, and this mortal, this which dies, shall have put on
immortality, that which cannot die, like the immortal God cannot
die, when the mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall
be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed
up in victory. Death is swallowed up in victory.
In Christ we have the victory. We are more than conquerors,
says chapter 8 of Romans. The sting of death is sin. What
does that mean? It means that sin is the thing
that makes death the painful thing. The sting of death is
sin, because in it is the thing that says you must die. The sin
calls for the death of the sinner. And the strength of sin is the
law, which defines what sin is, for sin is the transgression
of the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not
in vain in the Lord. You see, the fear of death is
gone for God's saints. The death of God's elect is not
the penalty for sin. Christ has died the death demanded
by the broken law for the sins of his people. Death is not a
punishment, it is a privilege. It is the entrance into eternal
bliss. Paul writes this to the Corinthians
in 1 Corinthians 3, 21 to 23, he says, to believers, to saints,
to the saints whose death is precious in the sight of the
Lord. All things are yours, he says. Whether Paul, or Apollos,
or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or death, or things
present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's,
and Christ is God's. What a blessed thing it is to
have that comfortable state of mind, by faith, that death is
not to be feared, that death is to be rejoiced in. We live
here, and we love here, and we enjoy here, and we create things
here, and we interact here, and it can be a wonderful experience. But if you're a child of God,
there is so much better to come. There is that which we just do
not know. As John said, we know not what
we shall be like. We don't know what we'll be like
when He comes. We don't know. It hasn't been revealed to us
what we shall be like, but we know this. When we shall see
Him, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. There'll
be no sin there. There'll be no corruption there.
No. Like Simeon said, remember when Simeon held the infant Jesus,
just eight days old, in the temple, and he'd been waiting, and now
he'd seen the salvation of the Lord come, he said, regarding
his own death, because he was a very old man, he said, God
had promised him, you won't die until you've seen the salvation
of God. Now he's seen him, Lord, That's it, that'll do. Let now
thy servant depart in peace. No, death for saints is not a
legal infliction, rather it is a covenant blessing. Can you
get your head round that? Death for God's saints, those
who believe Him, is not a legal penalty, a legal infliction,
it's a covenant blessing to be taken, to be with Him. Precious
to God, precious to God, anticipated by Christ as His prayer is daily
fulfilled, as the saints of God are taken home to glory. Of course,
It isn't without sorrow for those left behind. You know, when you
think about it, if you've had a lifelong partner, like I have,
like we have, the thing that we dread most is the day that
one of us is taken from the other, because you think, what will
we do? Oh, you just can't imagine it,
when so many years, 52 years we've been together now, So many
years, and you just think, what on earth will life be like? How
on earth will I cope with it? But, but... Yes, there's sorrow
for those left behind, but we don't sorrow, as it says here
in 1 Thessalonians, he said in chapter 4, verses 13 and 14,
Paul says to them, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,
concerning them which are asleep. Those who've died, is what he's
talking about. Believers who've died, that ye
sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. Don't sorrow like
those who have no hope. We have a hope of eternal glory.
Our brother Don has departed from us and to so many, not least
his wife Shelby. It is the most dreadful wrench.
Can you imagine that church where he ministered for over 40 years?
And what a great gap there is. He was a big man, but what a
big man in terms of preaching and his influence and the work
the Lord gave him to do that he fulfilled so faithfully. And now he's gone. Can you imagine
the hole that that's left? But yet they know where he is.
They're sorrowing, but they're not sorrowing as those who have
no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even
so also them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. We have
an eternal hope, a hope of glory. This is a death that God himself
counts precious. The death of his saints, God
himself, whose everything belongs to God. It's all that is his. He has made all things. He upholds
all things. Everything is his, yet he counts
the death of his saints as precious, because his saints are his jewels. He tells us that in Malachi chapter
three, verse 17, when he makes up his jewels. His jewels are
his people, his saints. Jewels, they don't particularly
do anything functionally, but they're delightful ornaments.
They delight the eye, they delight the heart. He says his people
are his jewels. Their names, you know like the
priest in the Aaronic priesthood, the robes that Moses was told
that had to be made for Aaron, the high priest, and all high
priests that followed. And there was a breastplate,
and the jewels on it, engraven on it, you look at all the details,
but were the names of the tribes of Israel. the people of God,
the saints of God, not just the Old Testament ones, the Israel
of God, the Israel of God. And where that was a picture,
the reality is that the names of the elect of God are graven
on the high priestly, the priest after the order of Melchizedek,
which is our Lord Jesus Christ, on his high priestly robe, on
that breastplate. This is all figurative language,
I know, but the truth lies behind it. The names of all of his people
are engraved there. They're written on the palms
of his hands. On the palms of his hands. They're
his people. They're precious to him. They're
his people. They're the people of God. They're
the people that He loved before the beginning of time. They're
the people that He chose in Christ before the beginning of time.
They're the Church of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Bride
of Christ, the Bride of His Son. This is the people whom He loves.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,
his body, his bride, and gave himself for it, that he might
present it to himself, a spotless bride, without any sin, without
any blemish. This is the culmination of God's
eternal purpose for his kingdom. This is it, the culmination of
it, the gathering in of His harvest of grace and accomplished redemption. There He sowed the seed in grace
before the beginning of time. Christ came and paid the price
in accomplished redemption, and now the death of His saints is
the gathering in of His harvest, one by one now in time, and then
when Christ comes again, they'll all be taken up to meet Him in
the air. This is a death that is different
to all the rest, in this world where death is all around us,
where life is so often regarded on the one hand as such a tragic
loss and then by others as such a fickle, worthless, expendable
thing, yet it's precious in the sight of God. It's a death that's
different, a death that God counts precious, a death that holds
no fear. I've already mentioned Hebrews
2.15, those who through fear of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage. You know, when this death comes,
it may feel cold to the saint's flesh, the one who is dying,
it may feel cold. You know what it's like, we're
all missing going to the seaside, and I love to go in the sea down
in Cornwall, and any of you listening this far away, if you live where
the waters around your coast are lovely and warm, well that's
very nice for you, but Even in July in Cornwall, the seawater
generally is quite chilly, and when you get in, especially if
it's a very hot day and the sea's still only at about 16 or 17
degrees C, wow, it feels cold. It sends a shiver up you. But
you know, you go in up to your knees, and then up to your waist,
and then you wet the top part of you around your arms, and
then you take the plunge and you get in, and you know, a few
seconds later, it doesn't feel that bad. And then you say, what
are you saying to those who are on the shore looking at you?
Hey, come on in, it's really quite nice. No, it's freezing.
No, honestly, when you get in, it's quite nice, you see? This
idea of death may still, for the saint, feel like cold water
as we go into it, but it's only the act of getting in. It isn't
anything to be afraid of, it holds no fear. It isn't annihilation,
as some unbelievers fondly hope. They just think, ah, well, I'm
just going to cease to exist when I die. The switch will go
off, like the light going off, so will I go off. All consciousness
of mine will end. That's not the word of God's
testimony regarding death, no. And it isn't, as the Catholics
say, it isn't entrance into purgatory. to make you ready for heaven
properly. You know, you've had a good go, you've been to Mass,
you've done your penances, you've read your rosary and all the
rest of it, but you're still not fit, so you have to go into
this limbo state of purgatory to have a few more beatings for
your sins until you're fit to be in heaven. Absolutely not.
Absolutely not. That's nowhere in the Word of
God. No. What is it? For the saint? its
passage from the realm of sin to a higher, nobler existence. This day, said Jesus to that
thief on the cross, this day you shall be with me in paradise,
and qualified to be there. You know there's this silly notion
that when we die, you know, comedy likes to make something of it,
that When you go up towards heaven, there's the pearly gates of heaven,
and it's guarded, the gates of heaven are guarded by Saint Peter,
who opens the books to see if you're good enough to go into
heaven, and works out whether you're allowed in there. That's
not right, because the saints of God are fully qualified to
be there. It needs no Saint Peter to check
whether you're qualified. You're made the righteousness
of God in Christ. You face it confident that, what
John says, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us
from all sin. It has cleansed us, it continues
to cleanse us. What is the grave? What is it?
You know, you go to a funeral, and I know most these days in
this country are cremations, because in this country we've
got such a big population and so very little land for burying
people in, so very much the emphasis is on cremation these days, but
you occasionally go to a burial, and there's the grave, and the
death of the one that's just gone, that to the family it's
a tragedy, it's a place of sorrow, especially if it's a cold winter's
day. Have you stood by a grave on a cold winter's day when the
wind's blowing, maybe the rain's falling, maybe the snow's on
the ground, and there's this dark black hole six feet deep?
and that box with the body in, the body of the dear departed
one who was living and breathing and talking to you just days
earlier is lowered down into that earth and covered with soil
and it's dark. Or you see the curtains close
in the crematorium and the box goes into what you know, as nice
as they try to make it look on the side that the people are,
behind it is a fiery furnace, an intense furnace. Is that what
it is? for the saint, for the child
of God, it's an inn, it's a halting place, it's a halting place on
the road to resurrection. The illustration is told, when
I was a kid, I don't know if children do it now, but we just
roamed free in the countryside it seemed, and one thing that
was very popular at this time of year, in the spring, was bird
nesting. And what you were doing was you
were looking for different types of bird's nest, and you'd see
the clutch of eggs, four or five eggs, of different colours and
different sizes, tiny little bluetits nests and then the bigger
ones for the blackbirds. And what we'd try and do was
you would take one of the eggs and you would punch a hole top
and bottom and then blow the innards out and you would save
the empty shell and you would have a collection of eggs. It
was really quite popular when I was a boy. And the story is
told of this little boy who discovered the delights of finding birds
nests with their eggs in. and how pleased he was to find
this little bluetits nest with its little eggs there. And after
a few days he goes to look at it, and it's all broken. All
the shells are just lying there broken. And he goes back crying
to his mum. The nest that was so beautiful
to him, it's now just empty broken shells. And she says, it's no
reason to cry. All it is, is evidence that the
birds that were in the eggs have flown. They're now flying in
the trees. They're singing in the trees.
They're alive. That's the thing. It's like that. The dead body, I know I keep
mentioning him, but it is recent, the dead body of our dear friend
Don Faulkner is like those broken eggshells. But his spirit, if
we believe the word of God, his spirit is enjoying intimate communion
with his Redeemer, beholding his glory. And so Paul says in
Philippians 1.23, having a desire to depart, to go to be with Christ. To be
with Christ, which is far better, but of course he felt that there
was a ministry to be done here. Another reference for you, 2
Corinthians chapter 5, and we read some of it before, but the
last couple of verses of what we read earlier on, verses 6
and 7, Therefore, we are always confident, knowing that whilst
we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For
we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and
willing, rather, to be absent from the body, and to be present
with the Lord. To be absent from the body, that
dead body lowered into the ground, is to be present with the Lord.
And it's an experience for all saints, true saints, true believers,
that proves their faith. You see, somebody else said about
Psalm 23, and this is why I put it in the bulletin, that little
piece from Henry Mahan, Psalm 23 is very dear. to so many people. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He makes me to lie down by still... He leads me
by the still waters, green pastures, etc. He feeds my soul. He sets a table before me. Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for thou art with me, and thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me. Oh, you can read commentaries
on Psalm 23, but you will never value it so well as when you
yourself are in the valley of the shadow of death, and you
know the comfort of what Christ has done. One said, a mortal
paleness on my cheek, but glory in my soul. What a prospect. Is that not a comforting, warming
prospect? But for any not in Christ, and
I feel I have to say this, I feel I have to, because it's the truth.
What a dread day of loss is the day of your death. What a dread
day of falling into the hands of the living God. whose justice
and holiness and righteousness are offended by your sin, which
has not been purged. Will you seek the Lord while
he may be found? You know what it says about today?
We're still alive, we're still breathing. It says this, today
is the day of salvation. Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Tomorrow might not be.