In a period of just a few days,
I lost three friends who have been
friends for a long, long time. I lost them. The Redeemer didn't. He gathered
them. But I lost them. And I try on such occasions to
remind myself anew that I'm a dying man, and you are too. Oh, God give me grace to live
every day in the immediate prospect of death and judgment and eternity. I expect we'd live a good bit
different. I realize I am naturally given
to some order. Folks might not think so, but
I have some order. I like to have things neat around me. It's
not just that. I leave the office at night.
clean things up, put things in order as best I can, so that
when I'm gone, I won't be in trouble with anybody else. I
want to do that with everything in my life. Now I want to ask
you something. Are you afraid to die? Be honest with yourself. Christ
came into the world to deliver us from the fear of death, are
you afraid to die? It's a fair, honest question. Are you afraid to die? Now listen
to the scriptures, and listen well. Soon you shall die. These bodies are decaying rapidly,
and soon our souls shall stand before God Almighty in judgment. For you who are without Christ, death is the beginning of indescribable, infinite, endless When Paul thought, What awaits
you? He said, Knowing therefore the
terror of the Lord will he persuade me. Sometimes I hear from folks today, I've had folks say, You're a
hellfire and damnation preacher. I tremble to think what hell
is. I never study it. I know much
more about it now than I ever want to know. Hell is that place where God puts
rebels who here wreak havoc in his universe. and fixes it so
they can't do any more harm and in hell he will execute upon
you his just and holy wrath without
mitigation and your soul your body and your mind shall be tormented
forever tormented in such ways as no insane asylum has ever
imagined. A conscience fully awakened and utterly guilty. Senses fully awakened and never
satisfied. Hatred. Hatred. Hatred. Just hatred. And nobody affected by it but
you. Fire. Is it literal or not? Whatever it is, this fire won't
be quenched. everlasting damnation. But you're trying to scare us.
I really wish I could. I really wish I could, but that's
not going to do any good. I'm trying to warn you of wrath
to come. But for the believer, oh how
different. For the believer, death isn't
really death at all. Our Lord said, he that liveth
and believeth on me shall never die. Never die. I'm not going to die. I'm not
going to die. Did you hear me? I'm not going
to die. Now this body, I may leave it
before I get out of this pulpit, but I ain't going to die. I ain't
going to die. For the believer, death is the
beginning of life. It's not something to be dreaded
with fear, but anticipated with hope. Death is a welcome relief. One of the old writers said,
it's like taking off a shoe that hurts my foot to be a welcome
relief. by laying down a tool that has served its purpose and
never needed again, it will be a welcome relief. When I leave this world, then
all my most earnest prayers will be answered just like that. I want to be like Christ and
with Christ and see things as Christ sees them. and completely
conformed to the will of God in the totality of my being, and without sin, and without
pain, and without sorrow, without temptation, without weakness,
without fear. For the believer, death might
be compared to a friendly visit from the Lord. As a man, I don't
know whether Vengeance still has it. Do you still have your
rose garden? He goes out and might walk through his garden
and just pick him a rose and put it in his lapel. We don't
do that much these days. Put it right there. Put it in my rose. This is what
I do. Our master comes here to his
vineyard and he picks his flowers. and carries them in his bosom
to his house, and displays the wonders of his grace. Augustus
Toplady put it this way, Oh, what a burst of joy, what a sense
of glory opens to the ravished view, and beams on the triumphant
soul of a saint in the moment of departure. The deathbed of
a Christian is at the chamber of heaven, the very suburbs of
the New Jerusalem. Friday night, Saturday morning
early, I tried my best to imagine what it will be like to enter
into glory. I thought particularly Brother
James Watson, he just left there. Reckon what he's enjoying now. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of men the things that
God hath prepared for them that love him. But he has revealed
them to us. He has revealed some things.
I know some things he's experiencing. Right now, he is embraced of and embraces the
Lord Jesus Christ in all his glorious fullness. with a perfect heart. He is enjoying redemption. Now can I enjoy it? You do too. Can you imagine what it is to
understand it? I mean really. Not in theory,
not in your head alone, in your heart, the sacrifice of God's
darling The sacrifice of the triune God. The sacrifice of
your Redeemer. That which He endured for you. And forgiveness. Hmm. Forgiveness. I can't think of
a sweeter thing on this earth than forgiveness. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. I'm forgiven of
my sin. I'll be honest with you. That's
just about the most astonishing thing in the world to me. I'm forgiven. And I haven't begun
to grasp it. But soon I'm going to. I'm going
to grasp forgiveness in the experience of it with no more tears because
of it. No sorrow. No grief. No looking back as I wish. No fear at all. Not even fear way down deep,
hidden away in secret, that maybe it's not so. Forgiven. The moment the believer enters
into glory, he enters into the blessed consummation of grace. The Lord will give grace and
glory. Wherever he gives grace, he gives
glory. And what grace he gives is but
the anticipation and the foretaste of the glory awaiting us. And
as grace is altogether his gift, glory is altogether his gift. Now, with those things in mind,
turn with me, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 57. Isaiah 57. And just hold your Bibles open
here. Let me spend just a few minutes
talking to you about the death of a righteous man. The righteous perisheth, and no man lay a bit to heart. And merciful men are taken away,
none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to
come. He shall enter into peace, they
shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness."
Now here's the first thing I want you to say. Understand this.
God's saints are righteous and merciful. All of them. The righteous perish, the merciful
are taken away. Those who are born of God, those
who trust the Son of God, those who believe on Jesus Christ are
righteous. Now understand what the scriptures
teach in this regard. None of us have any righteousness
of our own. And every believer acknowledges
that. Every believer does. We have
no righteousness whatsoever in ourselves, of ourselves, produced
by ourselves. We don't have any, we can't produce
any, we can't get any on our own. We are nothing but sin. But the believer is a righteous
man, a righteous woman. They're called saints. I said
St. Ron Wood. Saints. That's holy. Righteous. Holy folks, this righteousness
is imputed to us in God's free justification. This is what that
means. It means that the Lord God, having
taken our sins and imputed them to Christ, having made Him to
be sin for us, has taken the righteousness of Christ and imputed
it to us, making us the very righteousness of God in Him.
Now, that's forensic legal language. But there's more to it than that.
Christ stood as our substitute and was made saint. And now we
stand before God in him, and we're made righteousness. The
very righteousness of God. But the believer is a person
who being called and born again by God's Spirit, is made righteous
in nature. He has righteousness imparted
to him as well. And when I say imparted righteousness,
I'm not talking about the idea that somehow God injects or infuses
righteousness into the old man so we get better and better.
Nothing could be further from the truth. But what happens is
this. You are made partakers of the
divine nature, born of the Spirit. That which is in you is Christ
Jesus the Lord. That holy thing that's in you
is Christ. When a man or woman is born of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ himself comes in all his being and takes
up residence in us. And we're born of the Spirit.
So that the believer is a man of two natures. flesh and spirit. That which is born of flesh and
that which is born of God. That which is the flesh can do
nothing but sin. That which is born of God cannot
sin. It's born of God. Is this what
John's talking about in 1 John 3? It's what Paul's talking about
in Romans chapter 7? It's the constant warfare we
have within ourselves. And yet at the same time, believers
are men and women who live in the pursuit of righteousness. We live continually reaching
for, stretching for, laying hold of, seeking Jesus Christ, the
Lord, our righteousness. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. That holiness
we must have is Christ Himself, not something we do. But the
believer, as he pursues Christ, crying that I may know Him, pursues conformity to the character of
the Son of God. We pursue being like Him, being made conformable unto His
days, utterly submissive to, utterly obedient to the will
of God. And then our text here tells
us that the believer is a merciful man. Merciful. Now, that means
he's kind and gracious. As a matter of fact, the word
might be translated, the man full of kindness. means he's
gentle, merciful, forgiving, generous, hospitable, loving,
gracious, kind. God's grace makes folks gracious. It does. It just does it. Forgiveness
makes folks forgiving. Mercy makes folks merciful. But
there's more than that here. The believer is a person who
is absolutely, in all the fullness of his existence, full of God's
mercy. You're looking at a man whose life is marked by mercy. God's mercy was set on me from
old eternity. Goodness and mercy have pursued
me all the days of my life. And because goodness and mercy
have followed me all the days of my life, I shall dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. I'll have a life. These 52 years with all the bumps and bruises,
with all the temptations and failures, with all the sin and
rebellion. Everything. Everything. Everything. No exceptions. No exceptions. No exceptions. Every hit that
fell, whoever betrayed me, whoever saw me, whoever pursued me, every
shemai, whoever cussed me. No exceptions. No exceptions.
My life is a life full of mercy. It's all come to pass because
of God's mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Merciful man. And then the scripture speaks
here of the wisdom and goodness of God's providence in the death
of his saints. The righteous perisheth. The
merciful is taken away. Now, the righteous don't perish
eternally. You know better than that. We sometimes, by reason
of temptation and sin, fear that we might perish. We sometimes
say, my strength and my hope have perished before the Lord,
as did the psalmist. Our peace and comfort are easily
disturbed and perish for a time. That's our shame, that's fact. But the righteous, righteous man can't perish because
he's righteous. No reason for him to perish.
God has no reason to be angry with him, he's righteous. It
made righteous by His grace, made righteous in Christ, washed
in the blood of Christ, called by the Spirit of God, sealed
by His grace, given eternal life, and never, never, never shall
they perish, our Lord says. But what's Isaiah talking about
here? He's talking about the death of the body. This body
of flesh must perish. That's the way it ought to be. The Lord God Almighty has fixed
from eternity the place of my death, and the time of my death,
and the means by which this body shall cease to walk around with
my soul in it. Shelby and I have reached the
age where we discuss with some degree of regularity, not a great
deal, just mention it once in a while, sure would be good to
go together. But that's altogether God's doing,
and that's best. You see, it really is of no concern
to me when I die, or where I die. or by what means
I die. That's entirely my father's doing. Entirely. Totally up to him. And he says precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of his saints. I've seen some brethren
taken to life. All of a sudden they breathe
their last breath and they're gone. And I've seen some brethren suffer. I've seen some folks die in great
physical agony. Believers. Believers. I've seen
some believers die with just some beaming assurance. And I've
seen some believers die with fear. Spurgeon told a story of
one of the men in his church. And he was about to die. This
man had been faithful, strong, confident man all his life. And
when he was about to die, he said, bring the boys home. His wife called her boys in.
They'd all gone out on their own. He said, I want them to
see how a believer dies. And he died crying in fear. No confidence, no worship, no
peace. And after he was gone, the boys
came home, the older boy sat down with his three younger brothers
and he said, If our father, who believed God,
went through this and death, how much woe must await us in
eternity. And one of them was converted
as a result. God has his own ways to do things. His own ways. I've seen other believers, personal
acquaintances. I have a dear friend. He's with
the Lord now. He said to me one time, I don't
know what it is, folks talk about not having any assurance. He
said, I've never doubted God's salvation since I first experienced
it. And you know what? He said it
had been almost anybody else. I always thought he ain't telling
me the truth. But I fully believed it, then and now. But before
he left here, he trembled constantly with unrelief. No matter how they died, precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. You see,
we shall die, and we shall die at God's appointed time, old
or young, and there will be nothing anybody can do to prolong it. And nothing anybody can do to
shorten the time. Immortals are immortal here until
their work is done. In God's good providence, he
often removes the righteous and leaves the wicked. The fruitful
trees are cut down in death, and barren trees are left to
cumber the ground. Merciful men are sometimes taken
away, and malicious men left to work more havoc in God's earth.
The Lord took Abel, his righteous servant, and left Cain for a
long time. Now, let me show you your father,
some of you. Some of you are fools. Fools, and behave foolishly. The righteous perisheth, And
no man layeth it to heart. The merciful is taken away. None
consider it. It's all laid to heart for a
little while. But nobody learns from it. Go out in the field and shoot
a steer. Drag it out to butcher it, let
the cattle look up for just a minute, and go right back to grazing.
And that's just exactly how we behave. God takes money out of
this world, and we, oh, better get ready to die. Go right back
to grazing. Very few value the lives of God's
saints. When they're taken, very few
look upon it as a public loss. He was still taken as a public
warrior. Wise men consider these things. When God's saints are
taken out of the world, the wise lay it to heart. When a righteous
man perishes, his influence perishes. lives in a community, loves God,
and loves his neighbor. And because he's a believer,
his influence spreads through the community. He may not know
it. The community may not even know it, but his influence spreads. And he's gone. His influence
is gone. And nobody knows him. When the merciful are gone, only
the malicious are left. If the righteous and the merciful
die, oh, surely you shall. But now let me show you this. This second verse of Isaiah 57
speaks of the blessedness of the righteous when they're taken
away. First, they're taken away from
the evil to come. You remember what God said to
Josiah? Turn over to 2 Kings. 2 Kings 22. He told Josiah the judgment that
was going to come on the land. But in verse 20, the Lord told his prophet to
give this word to Josiah. 2 Kings 22. Behold, therefore, I will gather
thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave
in peace. And thine eyes shall not see
all the evil which I will bring upon this place." And they brought
the key word again. I can't tell you the number of men and women whom
I've seen the Lord take out of this world. And I look on their houses, their
families today and I think, I'm so glad they didn't live to see
that. He takes them away from the evil
to come. He takes them away from evil
in this sense too, that we might not be tempted by it, that we might not be harmed by
it. What mercy! When God was about to send a
flood over the earth, He shut His own up in the ark before
any rain fell. And when God was about to send
rain of fire and brimstone on Sodom, he took Lot out of the
place before any fire fell. The Lord God takes them away
from the evil to come. This is an act of great compassion
toward his own, but it's also an act of judgment on them, on
the world. You see, believers, God's people in any place, Because God bestows the bounty
of his grace on us, everybody around us gets sunshine and rain.
He sends it for us, but they get hold of it. Their gardens
get water just like yours does. Because God's gracious believers
bring great benefit to all around them. All around them. Not because
what we did, because God's gracious to us. But when God takes his
own away, then the dam breaks, and woe
follows him. Believers are like those who
stand in the gap and hold back the flood of God's wrath. But
when God takes away that man who stands in the gap, then it's
a sign, as Matthew Henry said, that God intends war. Because he's called his ambassador
hope. Lot, that righteous man, that
righteous man. You can say what you will about
old brother Lot, but God says he's a righteous man, who vexed
his righteous soul from day to day. Lot stood as a day of holding
back the fire of God's wrath. Facing horror against the Sodomites. But God would not hurt the earth
till he had taken his own away. And then judgment fell. Now watch this. He's taken away
from evil to come and he shall enter into peace. Oh. We live in peace, thank God for
that. But man, our peace is so easily
ruffled, isn't it? It doesn't take much to disturb
my peace. I can be floating alone, just sailing in the clouds, and
I may not have a care in the wind, and somebody speaks the
wrong words, and all of a sudden, I'm just disturbed. But soon, I'm going to enter into peace. A world where there's no sin
within and no curse without. No pain, no temptation, no sorrow,
no sign, no sickness, no strife, no death. Are you afraid of that? Oh, no. As soon as we step out of this
world of strife and woe, we enter into Christ's world of peace. Oh, peace. Clay Curtis, Brother Watson's
grandson, to give the eulogy yesterday. And I like to do this. I ask him on the spot. Just give
him a few minutes to prepare, because I want him to speak from
here. And he said, The first scripture
my Pat Paul taught me was, Remember now thy Creator in the days of
thy years. He said he repeated it over and
over and over and over again. Every time we'd get together,
he'd give the first part and wait for me to give the second.
He said the last thing I heard him say, the last thing I heard
him say, to be absent from the body, to
be present with the Lord, is smile. He slid her into peace. Look
at this next line. They shall rest in their beds. Rest in their beds. We got the funeral home yesterday. Sheila, Jane's daughter, I said,
how do you think he looks? Bob, you fellas are skilled,
you can make fellas look better. But I was speechless. I just
couldn't say. The last time I saw him, he was
beginning to wither. Cancer was heading its way. But
he still had a little sparkle in his eye. Little redness in
his cheeks, little vibrance, hair. And after a bit I said, he looks
like a tent that's worn out, folded up, needs to be put away. That's not him, that's just the
tent. That's just the tent. This is not me. This is not me. When I'm gone, I'm bad enough
to look at men, but seal that coffin up. This is not me. This
is not me. Not me. No, no. He's gone. And the tent is collapsed. And that's the way it ought to
be. But it's not collapsed forever. It's resting in his bed. Resting
in the clay. resting in the clay, and there,
rotting and decaying according to the purpose of God. But soon,
when Christ comes again, raised up in glory, made like unto the
glorious body of Jesus Christ, sewn a natural body, sewn a corruptible
body, raised a spiritual body. Now, if you want to see how ignorant
men are, Read the explanations they give of that. A spiritual body? Who can talk about that? Nobody
to the cubs. But raised incorruptible. Now watch this. I love it. Each one walking in His uprightness. Oh, but that's Christ uprightness.
No, it isn't. It's His. Yes, it is. It's Christ.
It's exactly right. Walking in His uprightness. Was the Lord Jesus Christ made
sin? Remember what I told you a couple
of weeks ago? When our Lord made the water
wine? He didn't make it look like wine.
He didn't make it smell like wine. He didn't make it taste
like wine. He didn't make it so it would
deceive folks into thinking it was wine. He made the water wine. And when Christ was made sin, He wasn't made to look like it,
smell like it, taste like it. Bob Duffy was made sin for you. And in exactly the same way,
God has made you the righteousness of God in him. And I walk before
God in my uprightness. Uprightness of Christ. My uprightness, but my uprightness. So that I walk before him as
a right man. And when I stand before him in
glory, this body has entered into its rest. Did you catch what we read in
Scripture? I will be among those who stand before God's throne. Bold shall I stand in that great
day. For who ought to my charge shall
let thou through Christ's blood absolved I am from sin's tremendous
curse and blame? stand before him and walk in
my uprightness, in the very perfection of Christ. Now I ask you at the
beginning of the message, are you afraid to die? I ask myself that question, and
I don't try to answer it rationally. Men fear death because of a consciousness
of sin. They fear death because they
know they're not righteous enough to satisfy a holy God. They fear
death because they naturally fear the unknown. They fear death because they're
fearful for the welfare of their families. And faithful men, especially
pastors, fear for the welfare of God's church. I am not afraid to die. Right now. Right now. Right now. Because I have no
more conscience of sin. My conscience agrees with God's
holy law, says I'm not guilty. I have no reason to fear death,
because I'm righteous enough to win God's smile. My name is Jehovah Sidkenu, the
Lord our righteousness. Jesus Christ and I are one. My sin, oh the bliss of this
glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the
whole, is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more. It is
well with my soul. With his spotless garments over,
I am as holy as God's own Son." And I certainly do not look upon
eternity is the great unknown eternity. I know what's awaiting
me. Glory. The glorious liberty and sons
of God. I know when I was, some years
ago, faced with the immediate prospect of death, my great concern
was for my daughter. That little girl. Now I can be around to raise
her, to teach her, to provide for her, to protect her. And the Lord God made me to understand to the
comfort of my soul. She's not yours, she's mine.
And he's such a better father than you could ever be. Martin
Luther, on his deathbed, wrote out his will, and this is what
he said, kind of brief. He said, Lord, thou hast given
me wife and children. I have nothing to leave them,
but I commit them to thee, O father of the fatherless and judge of
widows. Nourish, keep, and teach them.