As you know, the Lord Jesus sent
his angels last week to carry our sister and friend, Joyce
Montgomery, home to glory. Friday, we had her memorial service
and bid her a brief goodbye. A brief goodbye. And what a blessed
privilege that is. I would say to you, listen now, I would say to you,
make plans for that day. For one thing, arrange so that
your family doesn't have to do things that are difficult for
them. But make plans for that day in this regard. Throughout
the history of God's church until recent times, believers have
always paid proper respect to the body as well as the soul. And there's a reason for that.
These bodies shall be raised incorruptible. I'm going to see
my Savior in this body. He redeemed our dust. Yes, these
bodies must go back to the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That's proper. But when the Savior
comes again, he's going to raise these bodies from the dust. And in my flesh, with these eyes,
I will see my God, my Redeemer, and my Savior. When Jacob died,
Joseph made a great, great work of burying his father in the
proper place with respect and honor. When Joseph died, he required
that his bones not be left in Egypt. And so 400 years, 400
years after he went down into Egypt, When Moses left with the children
of Israel and all the host of God's elect walked out of Egypt,
they packed up Joseph's bones and carried them out of that
land of distress. You see, when the believer dies,
we enter into glory. Our Lord Jesus said concerning
Lazarus, he sleepeth, he sleepeth. And the disciples thought he
was talking about taking his rest in sleep. And the Savior
then said, Lazarus is dead. But he was only accommodating
their weakness of understanding. Just a little bit later, he said
to Martha, he that believeth in me shall never die. I have no intention of dying.
Soon, I'm going to lay down this worn out tabernacle. but I have
no intention of dying. I have the possession of life
everlasting in Christ the Lord. In this body, the Lord God was
pleased to put me for a period of time. A period of time in
which to serve the interest of his kingdom and his glory. And we as believers ought to
make that final Farewell to our friends, this side of eternity,
a joyful time of worship and thanksgiving. I remember not
too many years ago, it was kind of customary for funeral directors,
morticians, undertakers, they keep trying to get away from
anything that implies they're dealing with death, but they
used to carry little tubes of ammonia in their pockets. Always
had a little tube of ammonia in their pockets. because the
intent was to get folks all bawling and crying and carrying on and
pass out and it could just feel so good and then they'd break
the ammonia and wake them up. It's good business. Well, those
days are gone. Now they don't really have funeral
services. They call it a celebration of
life. I've been thinking about that
this week. That's a little better, a little bit better. The sad
thing is folks get together and celebrate drunken revelry and
foolishness and ungodliness and such as that. No, it shouldn't
be that. But for believers, what a celebration
of life. What a celebration of life. When
you see me lying in my coffin, don't stand there and cry I didn't
die. Understand that? Understand that?
We bid Joyce a brief goodbye. And I brought the message I'm
going to try to preach to you this morning. So you who were
there will have the very unusual blessing or burden of hearing
me preach virtually the same message twice, that not many
folks have ever heard that. Open your Bibles, if you will,
to Revelation 22. I try every day, throughout the
day, consciously to think much about eternity. Eternity. Would to God I could somehow
persuade everybody here and everybody who hears my voice to spend much
less time thinking about time and think about eternity. Would to God, you young people,
oh, would to God he might be pleased to make you in your youth
think much about eternity. And you mothers and fathers,
think much about eternity. I've come here once more to speak
to you. eternity bound immortal souls
who soon must meet God face to face. Now, you're not going to
escape that. And you know that what I say
to you is so. You may stick your fingers in
your ears and put your hands over your eyes and refuse to
look at it and refuse to hear it, but there's a voice in your
soul that will not deny it. Soon you must meet God. And you will meet God in judgment.
You will meet God in judgment. Now, people want to debate a
whole lot about the Great White Throne Judgment and the Bema
Judgment and the Judgment Seat of Christ and how many judgments
and when they are, I would suggest you forget that nonsense. Be sure of this, Merle, we're
going to meet God in judgment. We're going to meet God in judgment.
We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, that
everyone may receive the things done in his body According to
that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. When you've closed your eyes
in death to time, you will open your eyes in judgment before
the bar of God, and you will receive exactly what you fully
deserve. You will receive exactly what
you fully deserve. Knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. I keep praying for grace from
God to speak, to preach the gospel with persuasive words, not of
man's wisdom, but of the power of God. And I can't so speak. It doesn't lie within the realm
of possibility. Training in oratory won't help. Practicing preaching won't help. That which is desperately needed
by me this hour and by you this hour is for God the Holy Spirit
to speak through me as it were through an empty pipe. directly
to your hearts. Oh, Spirit of God, so speak. We look not at the things which
are temporal, but at the things which are eternal. For the things
which are present, these earthly things, things that are seen,
they're temporal. The things that are not seen,
they're eternal. Now learn this, everything in
this world at best is just a puff of wind. You didn't hear that, did you? All your fame and riches popularity
and the opinions men have about you and all the high esteem you
seek to accumulate for yourself and all the relationships you
have is just a puff of wind. It's going to be gone like that.
And I'm going to tell you something, you won't be missed long. You won't be missed long. A few
days, folks will talk in your name. Very dear friend who used to
work in the White House. He was a lawyer with the Nixon
administration. Apparently, pretty good job of
the day. But he was a lawyer in those
days. He said, the day you leave, your phone stops ringing. Nobody remembers your name. All
the while you're there, oh, you're so important. Let me talk to
you. Let me have lunch with you. Let me have dinner with you. Oh,
I've got to have dinner with so and so. And then you die. And forget. And everything you've
lived for, and everything you've spent your life seeking to accumulate,
and everything you've fought for, and everything you've defended
and willing to kill for is gone. Gone. And that world to which
we're going, Everything is everlasting, eternal. I don't know what hell is and
don't want to. I don't know what the fires of
hell are and don't want to. I don't know what the torments
of the damned are and don't want to. But whatever they are, They
are indescribably worse than your most horrible imagination
has ever been. And whatever they are, they're
everlasting. When you're cast into hell, that's
forever. And the bliss and glory of heaven,
the bliss and glory of eternal life in Christ. whatever that is. And believe me, oh, believe me,
it is indescribably greater than your highest, noblest, most joyful
imagination. Whatever it is, it's eternal. Hear the words of the wise man
and learn what they mean. In the place where the tree falleth,
there shall it be. His language is not hard to understand. His meaning is obvious. Solomon
tells us by divine inspiration, whatever your condition is when
you die, that will be your condition throughout eternity. Should you
drop dead here before I'm done speaking the next 10 words, Whatever
you are now, that you're going to be forever. Whatever you are
when you die, that you will be forever. Because death changes
nothing. There will be no changes in eternity. That's my subject. No changes
in eternity. Whatever your spiritual condition
is at the moment of death, that will be your spiritual condition
forever. Whatever your state is before God when you die, that
will be your state before God forever. There will be no changes
in eternity. The judgment bar of God is not
like most people imagine. When you stand before God in
judgment, it will not be a judgment like you go to the courthouse
here in Boyle County. and you go before a judge and
evidence is presented and there's a decision made whether you're
guilty or not guilty, whether you are right before the law
or whether you've broken the law. That won't be the case at
all. The judgment bar of God is not a weighing of evidence.
It is a declaration and an execution of judgment. At the judgment
bar of God, God will not determine the guilt or innocence of you
who stand before it, but rather in judgment, the Lord God will
show forth the just execution of his holy law. He will show
the rightness, the justice, the truth, the reason why men go
to hell. and he will show the justice,
the rightness, the truth, the reason as to why men who in themselves
deserve to go to hell fully deserve to enter into life everlasting
and shall. In Revelation 22, 11, we read these words regarding
the state and condition of all men. As we leave this world and
enter into that eternity awaiting us, God says, he that is unjust,
let him be unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him
be filthy still. And he that is righteous, let
him be righteous still. And he that is holy, let him
be holy still. That's the message God gave by
his angel to his servant, John. And that's the message I have
for you today. and no changes in eternity. I'll
give you my message in four brief, dogmatic, undeniable statements. Statements arising directly from
that which is plainly written in the book of God and statements
that simply are unquestionable. I assure you, I assure you, the
statements that's commonly made about justice, you know, you've
seen the scales of justice and got blindfold over her eyes and
justice is blind. Well, justice in our land is
not blind. It's not blind. It's swayed a
great deal by who you are, who you know, and what you possess.
But with God, justice is blind. justice is blind. I mean by that,
God Almighty is no respecter of persons. He does not take
into consideration what your environment is or what the circumstances
were in which you were raised. or what your state of mind is,
or whether you are young or old or weak or strong, or what the
influences of men have been upon you. He takes none of those things
into consideration. God is no respecter of persons. You will stand naked before God
all on your own and be judged by him according to strict justice
and perfect righteousness. There will be no exercise of
mercy, no exercise of grace, no lenient sin, only justice,
only truth, only righteousness. God sees only two things in that
day, sin and righteousness, guilt and innocence, filthiness and
holiness. All right, here's the first statement.
If you die without Christ, You will die unjust, guilty, condemned,
and lost under the wrath of God. Some of you here are under the
wrath of God. The sword of justice glitters
over your soul. You have in your conscience a
sense of judgment. You know that it's right for
God to send you to hell, and you're terrified by the thought.
You try to silence it from your mind, but you can't escape it.
God's justice demands your execution. And if you die in that state,
you will be unjust forever. Nothing changes when you die. There'll be no changes in eternity.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. If you're without
Christ, you are unjust. Unjustified before God. The very same wrath of God that
heats the fires of hell is upon you. He that believeth not is
condemned already. And that's a matter of righteousness.
If God should seize you before you draw your next breath and
cast you into hell, his judgment upon you would be exactly what
you deserve. I've had to preach the funerals
of people I dearly love who died under the wrath of God. And it's tough to do. Skip, that's
the toughest thing I know of about pastor. It's tough to do. Hard to maintain your composure
because your heart breaks. And you here who are without
Christ, your pastor may weep over you now. And I may weep
over you in the day when I see the last shovel of dirt thrown
in your face. Your mother and father may weep
over you brothers and sisters sons and daughters may weep over
you, but I assure you I assure you God doesn't and God won't
And I assure you that when we've drawn our last breath and we
walk in the light of of his perfect light and understand as he understands
and see as he sees there will be no mothers and no fathers
in glory weeping over lost sons and daughters in hell. There
will be no husbands and wives in glory weeping over lost husbands
or wives in hell. There'll be no sons or daughters
in glory weeping over lost parents in hell or lost siblings in hell.
It won't happen because God does right and if you go to hell God
does right. You understand that, Frank? If
you go to hell, God does right. The wages of sin is death. Eternal, everlasting, endless
death in hell called the second death. You know God's commandment and
God's promise Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved. But you won't believe. You won't
obey God's command. You go on despising God's promise. You've heard declared plainly,
you can't justify yourself by your works, you can't put away
sin by something you do, and maybe you acknowledge that to
be so, but you keep on trying. Keep on trying to make yourself
good. Keep on trying to make yourself righteous. Keep on trying
to erase the record of your sins and transgressions. Keep on trying
to make yourself appear good before God, and you think if
you can make yourself look good to men, you can make yourself
look good to God. It won't work. It won't work.
If you die in your present condition, refusing to believe on the Son
of God, you'll perish in your sins forever, under the wrath
of Almighty God, alone in hell forever. Oh, but preacher, there'll be
lots of folks there. Have you ever been in a crowd and been
alone? I was on the streets of Kingston,
Jamaica one Saturday morning, and I was not a welcome face. I was in a rough section of town.
Kind of got there by accident. I was surrounded by black faces
that were angry, and I was the only white fellow in the neighborhood. I didn't see another one around.
I'm going to tell you something. There were thousands of people
around me. But I was as alone as you can
get. There was nobody who wanted me
there. Nobody who wanted anything to
do with me. No one to speak kindly to me.
No one to share any feeling I had in my heart. No one to care for
me. And thus it shall be with your
soul alone cast away in hell from God and everything except
your own screaming guilty conscience alone. The only thing that will take
change that will take place when you die You're going to wake up in hell
and then you will value free justification in Christ the Lord more than
anything you can imagine. Like that rich man in hell, you'll
wake up in hell and realize what a fool, what a fool you've been. to stop your ears and shut your
eyes and run madly to hell, running against God. Dare you die without
Christ? Unjust. Number two, if you die
without Christ, you will die in your sins, unclean, filthy
before God. And you will remain filthy forever. He that is filthy, let him be
filthy still. I don't like filth. I don't like
to be around filth. I don't like to be close to filthy
folks, especially when I've just had a bath. I don't care for
it. And if I'm dirty, I don't want
to be around anybody. If I have been engaged in something
that caused me to sweat all day long and I know I'm dirty and
stink, you won't see me. I'll try my best to not be seen
by you until I've had a bath and put on some good smelling
cologne. Because we hate filth. You ever been around filth? I
mean filth. Filth, the filth of a corrupted
corpse. Filth. The remembrance of the
filth will turn your stomach. That's what you are before God
out of Christ. Filthy. Filthy. Filthy. Filthy. But preacher, I'm good. God says
your goodness is filthy rags. But preacher, I do good. God
says you're filthy. You're stitching my nostrils.
He said, your prayers, your sacrifices, your Sabbath keeping, your feast,
your solemn assemblies, all of them are an offense to me. Filthy. Because you're filthy
at heart. Filthy at heart. Oh, not me,
preacher. Not me. Who have I known here
the shortest space of time? I guess, Tony, let me pick on
you a little bit. Not filthy. Would you please
stand up here and tell us every thought of your heart that you
can remember? Every thought. Oh, no, I couldn't
do that. No, I'd be embarrassed to do
that. Yeah, you would. And I'll tell you why. Because
your heart is filthy. Tell your wife, I wouldn't do
that, she wouldn't live with me. You know it, don't you? Because
your heart's filthy. Tell your husband, I couldn't
do that, he'd leave me. You know her, if he really knew
you, because you're filthy. And if you're filthy before men,
what do you think you are before God? Filthy, stench, obnoxious
to God. If you die in your filth, you
will wallow in your filth forever. Death won't change you. The fires of hell won't purge
you or purge away your filth. He which is filthy, let him be
filthy still. You see, in hell there'll be
no repentance, no regeneration of the heart. no renovation of
the soul, no reformation of life, there's only one thing that will
change about your filth. Only one thing that will change.
Every lust, every vile, obscene thing in you will come to its
full, full energy with no satisfaction. That's the nature of man. Now
let me tell you what Christ has done for sinners. Years ago, Brother Mahan told
the missionary, I think he had come in from India giving a report
of his labors at one of the churches. And he told of walking out someplace
in India, and they walked out into a clearing, and as they
did, they heard the faint cry of a raspy, raspy voice. And he kept trying to make his
way to the voice, trying to find who needed help. And finally,
they made their way to a clearing, and they saw what he described
as the most horrible sight he'd ever seen. He said there was
an old man, a leper, whose body was nearly consumed with leprosy. And he's sitting there with those
nubs that used to be hands on his knees, and he's crying, help
me, help me. Won't somebody please help me? And that missionary said, I thought
to myself, if I could go over to that man and lay my mouth
on his mouth, and breathe into my body all his filth and corruption
and sickness and death. And breathe into his soul and
his body all of my life and righteousness and holiness and cleanness and
health and purity. That's what Christ has done for
me. He took our sins and made them
His own and died in the horrible hell of God's wrath in our womb
instead suffering everything we could suffer in hell forever
all at once when He was made sin for us and now He's come
to chosen sinners Sinners just like you, filthy sinners we are. And He breathes into us His Spirit
and gives us all His health and holiness and righteousness and
justice and truth and life forever. Third, the message gets much better
now. If you die in Christ, you will die righteous, and you
will remain righteous forever. Oh, let me die the death of the
righteous. Let my last day be like his. God's people are folks made righteous
by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. By his obedience unto
God, we have perfect righteousness. I keep preaching this to you,
and I'm going to keep on preaching it until my last breath, if God
will enable me, because, Bill Rodler, we don't half appreciate
it. When Jesus Christ walked on this earth, he didn't do it
for himself. He did it for you. He didn't live here as a private
man. He lived here as a public person. And I don't mean by that
just a ceremonially public person. He lived for us and we lived
in him. And when he obeyed God, we obeyed
God. When he walked with God, we walked
with God. When he fulfilled righteousness
perfectly, we fulfilled righteousness perfectly. That's not just a
fiction. That's not just a good story.
That's not just a picture like Abraham and Levi. That's not
just even a picture like Adam and us in his lens. This is real. This is spiritual. This is everlasting. God made
us one with Christ. And Oscar Bailey, God requires
that you love God with all your heart and love me just like you
love yourself. And you can't do it. much as
you want to, you can't do it. Your love for God ain't worth
talking about, and your love for me ain't worth talking about,
except, as you've seen, in the perfection of Him in whom we
really are. And in Christ, listen to me now,
in Christ, in Christ, that man has and does love God with all
his heart. Loves me just like he loves himself
It cannot be otherwise it cannot be otherwise we love our own
bodies and Believers love one another because they're one in
Christ Believers love one another not because of what they see
in each other But because they see and understand each is in
Christ the Lord and in him We perfectly walked with God. Wouldn't you like to? Don, wouldn't
you like to do that now? Walk with God with no sin forever. Walk with God perfectly, righteously,
with no disobedience, no evil thought, no evil passion, no
corruption of any kind, perfectly. That's what God requires. It
must be perfect to be accepted. And bless God, that's what Christ
has done for us. He's made us righteous, the very
righteousness of God in Him. And if you die in Christ, you
will die holy, holy, holy. People these days don't have
a clue what holiness is. They don't have a clue. Religious
folks know less about it than anybody. Don't have a clue what
holiness is. They think holiness is you don't
drink or smoke or chew or roam with the girls who do. They think
holiness is the way you dress or the way you talk. Talk a certain
way. They think holiness is doing
stuff or not doing stuff. No, that's not it. Holiness is
wholeness. Well, how did God make Adam in
the garden? He made man upright, didn't he? Whole. Whole. He was a whole man. I've never been a whole man in
my life physically. Adam was a whole man. Mentally,
physically, emotionally, spiritually, Oh, oh, and then sin came. It was sin, that thing called
death, which now that cripple, dirty, filthy, unclean, lame,
blind, deaf, mute called Adam has passed on to all his sons
and daughters until the great physician came. And you know what he does with
sinners, Tom? He makes the sick whole. Whole. For in the new birth, he comes
and puts in us a holy nature. It's called Christ in you, the
hope of glory, a new man created in righteousness and in true
holiness. And when we breathe out our last
breath, and close our eyes, and say our last goodbyes on this
earth. Then, he that is holy, let him
be holy still. We will then have no changes
in eternity. Won't be any more holy then than
we are now. No more righteous then than we are now. Just one
slightly glorious change. We won't have to be bothered
anymore with this body of sin. We shall be like Him, for we
shall see Him as He is. Oh, Spirit of God, sweetly for
sinners here today, to do what they cannot and will not do,
to stretch forth their withered arms and believe on the Lord
Jesus, receiving Christ the Lord. Cause the dead to awake to hear
the voice of the Son of God and live in the blessedness of the
first resurrection. For on such the second death
has no power. Amen.