If you have a copy of the Word
of God with you this morning to the book of Hebrews chapter
2. Hebrews chapter 2. In Hebrews chapter 2 I begin
reading with verse 9 and we'll read down through verse 15. Hebrews
2 verse 9 through 15. But we see Jesus, hallelujah,
that's wonderful, who was made a little lower than the angels
for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he
by the grace of God should taste death for every son, every true
born son. The word is translated sons in
verse 10. For it became him for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all one, for which cause he is
not ashamed to call them brethren." That's a marvelous verse of Scripture.
Both he that sanctifieth, that's Christ, and they who are set
apart in Christ. are all of one, and they're all
the same, because the believer is in the body of Christ, that
we are in Christ, and we are one with him, for which cause
he's not ashamed to call them brethren. As we stand outside
of Christ, he'd be ashamed of us. He wouldn't touch us with
a ten-foot pole, but the only way that he will is for us to
be one with him so that all of our blemishes All of our sins,
all of our shortcomings are all hid as we stand in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee. And again I will put my trust
in him, and again behold I and the children which God hath given
me. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood. He's talking about believers.
He's talking about those for whom he tasted death. He's talking
about those that have been brought to him by the irresistible power
of the Holy Spirit. He's talking about these children
which God hath given to him. For as much then as these children
are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
bondage. And deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. In the book of Deuteronomy chapter
32 and verse 29, the scripture says, Moses the prophet of God
said, Oh, that they were wise, speaking of the nation of Israel,
that they understood this, that they would consider their latter
end. Moses said that the people of
Israel would be wise to consider their latter end. Well, in our
text this morning, I find a question, and that question would be this,
that I would present to you at this time. Are you afraid to
die? Are you afraid to face death? Here is a solemn and a very sobering
and serious question. At least it is to me. It is a
question that you might prefer to avoid and to sidestep. But beloved, you cannot avoid
it. You may suppress it and you may postpone it, postpone dealing
with it, but you cannot avoid it. Are you afraid to die? Because die you must. There is
no discharge, the Word of God says, from this war. There's
no way of escaping it. One time there was an elderly
schoolteacher that walked in her room of sixth graders, and
she was very feeble, kind of stooped over, gray-headed, and
she had taught the class, and she was getting ready to go out
of the room, and she overheard one of the sixth grade children,
one of the boys, say, I don't want to ever grow old. She overheard
that. And so she turned about and she
said to the young man, she said, do you want to die young? And
he said, no. She said, well, then you have
no alternative. You will grow old and you will
die. There's no alternative. We all
must die. Now all die, some young and some
old, some believers and some infidels, some with no hope and
some with a false hope. And some, bless God, with a good
hope, with a good hope through grace. Some die in utter terror,
and some with great comfort, some in brazen blasphemy and
defiance, and some with peace, and some with joy. There was
a missionary that I read about one time who went to Bangladesh. And he was not over there very
long, him and his family, until I think he was 32 years old. He grew sick and ill and passed
away. He wanted so very much to be
a testimony unto those people. And when he passed away, the
day he died, there was a laundromat that was in the hallway doing
some ironing, and he could see into the open door, through the
open door, and see this missionary as he was laying upon the bed
in his last hour. And the missionary died in peace,
at a very peaceful home going. And this man, who was not a believer,
said to the wife of the missionary, said, my heart has been greatly
moved and greatly touched because your husband did not die like
our people die. Our people die with fear. Fear
grips them when they die. And your husband, he died a very
peaceful death. And this, he says, turns my heart. I want to know more about what
he believed, because I would like to die in peace like your
husband died. Well, even now, listen, there
are many who I've known who did everything they could to avoid
the subject of death while they lived. because they were subject
to the fear of death. They did everything they could
to avoid visiting a nursing home, visiting a hospital, or a funeral
parlor. They wanted nothing to do with
that. I don't know whether you ever met anybody that had that kind
of a phobia or not, but I have met several in my time. They
simply cannot face the fact, and it is a fact, that they too
must soon die. I believe that of all things
that move men, the principal thing that moves the heart of
mortal man is the fear of death. The fear of death will grip a
heart, will move a heart. My friend, I ask My heart and
yours this morning, what Jeremiah asked long ago, he said, if sickness
and death torment you now, then how wilt thou do in the swelling
of Jordan? If sickness and death bother
you now to the point where you cannot stand to be around it,
where you cannot stand to think about it, where you cannot stand
to deal with it, then what are you going to do in the time when
you're called upon to pass over the swelling of Jordan? Are we
afraid to die? Are we afraid to die? Well, I
believe it's a reasonable fear from one standpoint. The fear
of death is a very natural thing to sinful man. And the fact is
that if you're without Christ, and if you're without salvation
in Him, then you have great reason, my friend, to be afraid. Great
reason to be afraid. Hebrews 9 and 27 says, It is
appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.
Well, there was a Confederate soldier lying on the battlefield
during the Civil War, and there was a kind of a medic. He wasn't really a doctor, but
he came around and was trying to administer comfort to this
Confederate soldier who was gravely wounded. And he said to the man,
he said, are you afraid to die? And the man said, don't insult
me. He says, I've faced death on
many occasions. But the man said, well, I don't
really mean are you afraid to die, but are you afraid of that
which will come after death? And he says, that's it. That's
it. That's what I'm really afraid
of. And my friend, there are many, many people who say, who
may be very brazen and say, oh, death don't bother me. I'm not
afraid to die. But it's what comes after death,
my friend, that you better fear. Because it's appointed unto men
once to die, and after this, after this, the judgment. In
the long ago there was a dying man that requested that these
words be inscribed upon his tombstone. He wanted all who passed by his
grave to be reminded of the brevity of life and the certainty of
death. And we would be wise, I believe,
to lay them to heart. He said, I want these words on
my tombstone. Please view my grave as you pass
by, for as you are, so once was I, and as I am, soon you must
be, so make your plans to follow me. Life is brief and it's certain
to come to an end and it's reasonable if you're unsaved and you're
outside of Christ then my friend you have reason to be afraid.
Because of sin and guilt before God you must die but death will
not end your existence and I would impress this upon you. You're
going to stand before a holy and just God and you're going
to receive righteous judgment from his hand, and you will reap
exactly that penalty that is due your sin. The exact penalty,
I say, that is due your sin, the infinite, the eternal wrath
of this holy, just, and this righteous God. In 1 Corinthians
5, verse 10, it says, We must all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ, that everyone might receive the things done
in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good
or bad. And verse 11 says, knowing therefore
the terror of the Lord. We know something about the terror
of the Lord. Now most people like to hear
about the love of God, the mercy of God, and the grace of God,
but very few men and women want to hear anything about the terror
of the Lord. But I'm here to tell you today
that after this, after death, is the judgment, and we need
to face up to the realization that there's coming a day when
the God of the Bible will be a God sitting on the throne to
judge you, and Christ is the judge. of all of those who die
in repentance, those who die outside of the faith of the gospel. And so my friend, if you would
be delivered from the judgment of God and from the terror of
the Lord, then you must flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'd
like to at this time read from Revelation 20, verse 11 through
15. Revelation chapter 20, verse 11 through 15. And John the Revelator
said, And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it,
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there
was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and
great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and another
book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books according
to their works. And the sea gave up the dead
which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which
were in them, and they were judged every man according to their
works. And death and hell were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death. and whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. This is talking about that everlasting
death of the soul in hell fire. It is a torturous death that
never, never, never dies. Now note that for the believer
things are far different, because as we've read here in Hebrews
chapter 2, The Holy Spirit tells us that one great purpose of
our Savior's incarnation was that he might destroy Satan and
deliver us. his covenant people from the
fear of death. How wonderful it is to reflect
upon this. How blessed it is to be able
to believe what the Word of God says. Oh, for a God-given faith
to embrace what the Holy Spirit is teaching us here in this text. Now, some of you are young, and
you may not feel you need this message right now. Maybe you
feel that you could wait a number of years and maybe get the hold
of the tape of Old Preacher Mitchell's sermon and listen to it through
the years, in your later years. But my friend, you need to listen
now and pay attention. I remember a story about a young
fellow that lived next to a church. And this church had a bell, and
when they had a funeral at that church, they would ring the bell
for as many years as the person who had passed away had lived.
And so this young man would say that he would, of course he could
hear the bell, and so he would count the rings of the bell.
And if the reins of the belt surpassed his age, then he would
be encouraged and he wouldn't think a whole lot about it. And
especially if he went way past his age, he was greatly encouraged. He didn't have to think about
death. He felt that he had plenty of time. But when the bell just
rang a few times, when it stopped on his age, he said it bothered
him, it bothered him so much that he finally had to seek the
Lord and find salvation in his soul to be alleviated from the
fear of death. My friend, you need to be aware
of the fact that some die young, some die old, but all will die. It's like, I think I mentioned
to you one time, some fella come up to an old man out west and
said, what is the rate of death out here? And the old gentleman
said, one to the person. One to the person. Everybody
is going to die. And so my friend, we need to
be aware of this, but how wonderful it is if we're able to grasp
the message of the Word of God and be delivered from the fear
of death. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world for this purpose, that he might deliver them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And you may be here this morning
and you may be in iron bondage because of the fear that you're
going to die and that you're going to leave this world, you're
going to make an exodus out of this world. Well, I tell you,
one of the reasons for the coming of my Master, the reason for
His coming, the coming of the Savior, was to deliver you from
the fear of that death which you must die. And so, you and
I who are washed in the blood of Christ and living by faith
in Him, we should have no fear of dying. We should not. Certainly we must not expect
to have dying grace until our time to die has come. You're
not going to have dying grace given to you to pack around in
a suitcase until the time comes for you to die. That's not going
to happen. But my friend, listen to me,
yet we ought not to live out our days on this earth clinging
to the vanity of mortality and fearing our end. We must not
do that. We must find that deliverance
in the Lord Jesus Christ that we may be able to live out our
days in fruitfulness and in faithfulness unto our God. Christ came not
only to deliver us from death, but from the very fear of death. He does so by effectually teaching
us the gospel and giving us that blessed confidence of faith in
himself as our all-sufficient Savior. Brother, sister, there
is no deliverance from the fear of death except by looking to
him whose death We must look to Him whose death
is the death of death. Our Lord has done many things
to deliver us from this fear of death and its bondage, and
we dare not overlook it, and we dare not stand back in unbelief. and to go on in our bondage. We must be delivered. Our Lord,
I say, has done many, many things to deliver us from this fear
of death. Number one, let me point out
three or four of these things. Christ has destroyed the power
of death by dying in our place and rising again. Do you believe
that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive today? Do you believe He's
that one who was dead and was buried and is now yet living
again? I believe it, my friend. I believe
it because of the testimony of the Word of God. Well, since
all of God's elect were partakers of flesh and blood, and certainly
the children are all partakers, as the scripture here says, of
flesh and blood, we all were born in natural parents. That's
what that means. We all were born in sin. We all
were affected by original sin, and so beings that all of God's
elect were partakers of flesh and blood. They were under the
dominion of death, but Christ became a man to suffer and to
die for us. Will that ever, my friend, really
sink in? that Christ became a man. He
took not on himself the nature of angels. He took upon himself
the nature of Abraham. He took upon himself flesh and
blood. He was clothed in a veil of our
inferior clay. and in order that he might die,
in order that he might suffer death, in order that he might
destroy the works of the devil, in order that he might deliver
you out of the captivity that you were in, in a state of nature. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ,
we're now We are now in him more than conquers through him that
loved us. It was by his substitutionary
death on that cursed tree and his triumphant resurrection that
the Son of God has destroyed the power of the devil and the
power of the grave over us. We are now more than conquerors
in him, then why should we be afraid of death? Number two,
the Lord Jesus delivers us from the fear of death by removing
our sin. Now we said that he died in our
place. If he died our death, then we will not die that death
to sin. His was a death to sin. And I
rejoiced to know that His death of sin was my death of sin. And so when He died, He delivered
me from my sin. Now the sting of death, the Bible
says in 1 Corinthians 15, is sin. It is sin which causes men
torment in death. It is sin, unforgiven sin, that
will cause you torment in the hour when God is calling you
out of this world. But in Christ, those that are
in Christ, they have no sin. They have no sin. In Him, we
are fully absolved of all sin, both original and practiced sin
by us. We are completely absolved. Our
sins are all blotted out. Our sins are covered by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, I say, we are fully forgiven. By His blood, our sins are washed
away. They are washed away, and Jesus
said that if I wash you, you're clean everywhere. You're clean
everywhere. Now I look upon you this morning
and I see you dwelling in a body of flesh, and I assume that you
still have the old flesh tendencies and natures, and I still believe
that We're all sinners, having this old nature that we have.
But I also look upon you this morning, and as you stand in
Christ, I can view you in the perfect one. I can view you in
Jesus Christ, of whom men or God himself could ever find a
fault with, never could they find a fault with Him. And so
I view you in Him, and I view you as fully forgiven, And by
his blood our sins are so washed away that if we're born of God,
being in Christ, in him there is no sin. No sin in him. Listen to this verse, 1 John
3 and verse 5. And ye know that he was manifested
to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. You just let anybody say what
they want to but if you want to be if you want to be Delivered
from the fear of death you just believe that that you're in Christ
and in him there is no sin and that you stand perfect and complete
before God Accepted in the beloved one be sure you have the forgiveness
of sin by faith in Christ and my friend fear death No more. To die forgiven, accepted, and
beloved is not really to die at all. It is simply the departure
out of this world into the Father's house. It's to leave this world
and to go into the Father's house. Now then, number three, Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. That's how I know,
and this is how He has delivered me from the fear of death. Now, when I think about it, and
if I allow myself, being ignorant, if I ignore everything the Word
of God teaches, then I can still feel the death that is passed
upon me by the law. If I get legalistic minded for
an hour or two, then all kinds of things begin to happen in
my soul. Bondage begins to come upon me. But the scripture says that Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us. Galatians 3 and 13. The law of
God held us in bondage to the sentence of death and condemnation,
but Christ Romans 10 and 4 says that Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone to believe in. In other words,
you quit looking to the law and to your response to the law for
a basis to be freed from the fear of death. Quit looking at
it. because Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes. In other words, there is a righteousness
by faith which we must have, and if we have that, then we
stand accepted by God and perfect before the Lord, as righteous
as God's Son himself, as righteous as Jesus himself. He is the end
of the law's power to condemn. In the book of God's holy law,
there is now no legal claim of condemnation upon any child of
God. Romans 8 and 1 says, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
to them who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. And Romans 8, 33 and 34 says,
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifieth, it is Christ that died, yea rather that is
risen again. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Is there anyone that can come
and accuse us of some sin and make the charge stick? Absolutely
not. We're in Christ, and there's
no sin in Him, and God never views His children as they stand
in Christ, and they stand perfect and complete in Him. Why then
should we fear? Why then should we fear coming
before God? Why should we fear standing before
God if we're as righteous as His Son? What did God do when
his son returned back to glory when he was resurrected after
his resurrection? What did God do? He seated him
at his right hand. And the scripture says we are
already seated at the right hand of God. in the Lord Jesus Christ. So why should I be afraid to
leave this world and go yonder to be with the Lord when I'm
already seated in the Lord Jesus Christ at God's right hand? Now
you can say what you want to about how mean and how contrary
and how ornery I am, but my friend, I'm in Christ and that's where
I'm going to dwell. I labor to dwell in Christ. I
avoid all thinking That puts me anywhere but in Him. I abide
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the only place I want
to be found. Paul said to be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own, but that which is by
the faith of Jesus Christ. And I do not want to be found
anywhere else. If you want to get somewhere
else, you get it. You get where you want to go.
But my friend, you're never going to be free from the fear of death.
until you get into the Lord Jesus Christ and until His death is
that death that the law demanded that be executed upon you. I'm in Christ. I am dead to the
law. Why should I fear coming before
God and being dealt with as a lawbreaker? Jesus was dealt with as a lawbreaker. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that? Well, he certainly was. Romans
7 and 4, listen to this verse. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Now, beloved, everybody
that's saved is married unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Our old
husband, the law, we died to that law in Christ when he died
the penalty of the broken law. And in Jesus Christ we are alive. We're married to him that was
raised from the dead. Oh, a wife. Normally, if things
are right between her and her husband, she has no fear of her
husband. She has no fear of her husband. She trusts her husband. She would
gladly welcome the presence of her husband or herself if he's
been away for some time. She would be glad to. of one
who'd spent, who'd went away and went down several miles away
to be with her husband. And how wonderful it was to be
able to spend just a little time with her husband. And my friend,
it's true. Why should we be afraid if we're
married to the Lord Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead?
For our justification, why would we be afraid to go yonder and
to be with him? Well, I believe he's delivered
me from the bondage and from the legal claims that the law
had upon me. And if you're here this morning,
you're outside of Christ. If you have no hope in the Redeemer,
you have no hope, no blessed hope in the Son of God, then
my friend, I can see why you're under the bondage of death and
you fear it. You fear it. You cannot escape
it. There is no way. There's no philosophy
known to man that can cause you or enable you to escape from
the fear of death. There was an old king and he
wanted that some wise men come and write books on the philosophy
of life. He wanted to know all about what
they thought about life. Well, they wrote some books and
then he was a young man at the time and then I don't know whether
I said he was an old king or not, but when they first wrote
their books, he was a young man. And later on, he'd forgot it
all for a while, and later on, when he'd become a little older,
then he invited them back and said, you wrote the books, and
I've read those, but he said, I wonder now if you have any
thoughts that have come to you through the years. And they said,
our thoughts, boiling it all down, is that men are born, men
suffer, and men die. That's what happens. Men suffer
and die in this world. As sparks fly upward, a man is
born into trouble. Now my friend, these things that
I'm talking about today are things that we must face. There is no
other way. Get the philosophers, the wise
men, and read everything they said. They cannot deliver you
from the fear of death. It's only these things that we're
talking about today that the Son of God has accomplished in
our room and standing place that will deliver us. Fourthly, the
Lord Jesus Christ delivers us from the fear of death by changing
the very character of death. For the unbeliever, death is
a horrible, horrible thing. We've been trying to tell you
that. So horrible that there was a King Philip of Macedon
who was the father of Alexander the Great, and he had a servant
in the palace. It was his duty every morning
to come to him and tell him, remember Philip, you must die. Remember, you must die. And so The point I'm making is
that this is a horrible thing for an unbeliever to die. And
you may say, well, I'm not really impressed. That is such a horrible
thing. But it is a horrible thing for an unbeliever to die. For the unbeliever, anything
short of death is a mercy. Once you die, my lost friend,
it's curtains forever. You are forever sentenced to
die, die, die, die, die, die. You will never ever, ever live
again. You will die for all eternity. Anything short of death for the
unbeliever is mercy. But for the believer, death is
a great blessing. To those that are in Christ,
death is but the daybreak of eternal brightness. Not the punishment
of sin, but the end of sin. How wonderful it would be to
be taken into a place, no more sin. Now the love of many waxes
cold because iniquity abounds. But we're going out of this place.
Out of this place that's full of sin and misery. We're going
out of this place. The death of the believer is
the end, the end of sin. Paul said the penalty, presence,
practice of sin all over with. Death, as John Trapp says, is
but a sturdy porter opening the door of eternity. A rough passage
may be, but to eternal pleasure. To eternal pleasure. In his right
hand, there are pleasures forevermore. At his right hand. Our Lord said,
whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die. To the
ungodly death is the penalty of sin, but to the believer it's
just a change of location. That's all it is. Because that
which is already begun in your soul is going to go on for all
eternity. God living in you. God being
with you. God's Spirit dwelling in you. You're that new nature that he's
put in you. That's going to live on and on
and on for all eternity. For the believer it's just a
change of location. To the world and sinner, death
is the beginning of sorrows, but to the believer, it's admission
into glory. To the rebel, death is imprisonment,
but to the believer, it is everlasting freedom. everlasting and glorious
freedom. You want to be free? My friend,
in Christ we are free. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. Our Savior assures us that our
souls will go to be with Him in heaven when we die. The Bible
says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. Because I live,
he said, ye shall live also. Jeremiah 17 and 24, Father, I
will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where
I am, that they may behold my glory, for thou lovest me before
the foundation of the world. Jesus said, it's my will that
they be with me. That they be with me, because
thou hast given them to me. I want them to be with me where
I am. I want them to be where I am,
that they may behold my glory. Oh, what a wonderful thing. The
destiny of a child of God. This should remove this fear. Knowing this, how can we any
longer allow the fear of death to grip our hearts? Our Lord
has also assured us of the resurrection of our bodies. Do you believe
that? He's assured us of the resurrection of our bodies. Listen
to what Job said. Well, this body must be put off,
but blessed be God, we shall arise. This is my satisfying
confidence I say with Job. Job 19, verse 23 through 27. Let me read this. It's glorious. Oh, that my words were now written.
Oh, that they were printed in a book. that they were graven
with an iron pen and led in the rock forever. For I know that
my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter
day upon the earth, and though after my skin worms destroy this
body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself,
and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins
be consumed within me." So my friend, that's my satisfying
confidence is that this whole body is going to be resurrected. And after this passes through
the sieve of the worms, it yet will be resurrected and I shall
see God in this body. I shall see God in a glorified
body. So I'll have a new body, a new
body in that day. Well, with such a hope, the grave
loses all of its alarm. It loses its alarm, I say. Would you be free from the fear
of death? Look to Christ in faith as your
crucified substitute rising from the dead, as your representative
living and reigning in heaven, as your mediator and as your
coming king. Further, we ought to think about
death often and meditate on what it is to die in Christ. Martin
Luther said, Many, many years ago, he said, there are two things
I don't want to think about apart from Christ. One is my sin and
the other is death. I don't want to think about it
apart from Christ. But we ought to do some meditating
on what it is to die in Christ. In other words, we ought to make
some notes of what's been said today and go over these things
and over these things again and again in order that we might
be able to prepare ourselves that these things would soak
in. We know that those who die in the Lord are blessedly safe
and they're happy. You remember old Balaam? Balaam
was that one who said one thing and done another. That's the
sin of Balaam. Said one thing and done another. How that slaps us in the face.
But old Balaam saw and he desired to die the death of the righteous.
He said, I want to die the death of the righteous. Well, Balaam,
why would you want to die the death of the righteous? What
is it that makes the death of the righteous so blessed? What
is it? Well, there are two things, and
I'll just very briefly give them to you. Number one, death will
bring us into the presence and fellowship of many friends. It will bring us into the presence
and fellowship of many friends. Death takes wives, death takes
husbands, children, fathers, and mothers, and relatives. and
friends in Christ takes them all out of this world and takes
them into heaven, many of them into glory and we look forward
to meeting them there. There's an old song that says
that beyond the gate of sighs and tears, beyond that gate of of the suffering of death beyond
that, that we'll see our dear loved ones again and their welcome
smile, we'll see once more. We do look forward to meeting
over on the other shore. The circle, it appears, is going
to be broken. In the case of my family, it
will be broken. There's an old song that says,
will the circle be unbroken? But my friend, it appears that
that circle will be broken. That there will be many of my
brothers and sisters, God have mercy, will not be there on that
golden shore, in that fair morning, beyond the gate of suffering
and tears. There was an old grandmother
who lost her granddaughter by drowning. And she said, this
world will never be the same again for me. never be the same
place again. But she said this, but heaven
is more real to me now than ever before. And I'll tell you what,
when we begin to think about those who've gone ahead, those
who've gone on, how wonderful it is to be able to know that
there will be a glad reunion on the other side, and that there'll
be many of our dear loved ones, their welcome smile, we'll see
once more. It is true above all else that
we will see Christ and we'll be with Him. Paul said, I have
a desire to depart, to be with Christ, which is far better than
living in this world. I have that desire, he said,
to depart, to be with Christ. It's also promised that we're
going to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now what a
treat that'll be. And I could add a whole lot of
names to that. Fellas that I want to see, and
that I want to talk to, that I really would love to sit down
and just talk with some of the old saints of God I've read after
and some that I, in my own family back through the years, that
have loved Christ and preached the Word of God, I'm looking
forward, even though I never met them in this life. I had
two great uncles that were primitive Baptist preachers and I'm looking
forward to sitting down with old Uncle Tom and Uncle Nathan,
I really am, and visiting with them and fellowshipping with
them on that eternal shore. Well, when we die, we will leave
some behind. We're going to leave some behind
in this world, I know that. But we're going someplace, up
to the General Assembly, the Church of the Firstborn, whose
names are written already in heaven. And we shall know one
another there even better than we do now, even as the disciples
knew Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. We're
going to know each other. We certainly will. You say, well,
you think you know your uncles? I'll know my uncles, absolutely.
I'll know them. I saw pictures of them, and I'll
know them. I'll know them. And we shall
know each other on that shore. Well, lastly, when at last we
come to die in Christ, our most earnest and constant prayers
will all be answered. They'll all be answered. How
often have we prayed to be free in this world from trials, temptations,
and God knows the hindrances that we have here in this world. The hindrances. These things
that drag us down. These things are constantly plaguing
us in this life. How often have we prayed to be
free from this? Well, when we come to that place,
when we close our eyes in death, we'll leave this veil of tears
behind. It'll all be behind. And the former things, the Word
of God says, are all going to pass away, all going to be gone,
all going to pass away. For the believer, I really believe,
for the believer, death is the most blessed funeral of all,
for the believer. And somebody well said that if
we understood death and heaven, that every time a believer dies,
If we understood it like God has set it forth in his word,
that every time a believer dies, we clap our hands. Instead of
standing around and weeping and crying, we would clap our hands. And I believe that this is a
true statement. I believe we would. Well, my
friend, have you been delivered from the fear of death? Have you been delivered from
death? From the death of sin? Have you been delivered? What
is your hope this morning? Well, it's our business to deal
with reality and to give you a solid and substantial hope
to trust in and to believe in. And that we've done this morning
by preaching to you the Word of God. May God be pleased to
bless and bring forth fruit of what you've heard. Let us pray.
Father, in the name of Jesus, we commit the message and we
commit the hearts of these dear ones into your hand. And I pray
thee, Father, not knowing myself, anything about how soon I shall
leave this world or how soon some of my hearers are going
to leave this world, I commit this message into your hand.
I believe that it was of your spirit that we brought the message
this morning. I believe that it was timely,
and I believe that you've used it in the hearts of someone here
today. And I just pray that thou will deliver from the fear of
death and the bondage that some of these are in. They may be
to break out today and have a glorious time of joy and rejoicing being
delivered. from the bondage of their sin
and death. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen.