that I had prepared this evening. I want you to turn with me to
Hebrews chapter 2. Brother Paul Harries asked me
a little while ago how long I had known little Bill Clark. I met him in Memphis, Tennessee,
1972. He was preaching at a Sovereign
Grace Bible Conference that was being hosted in a church there.
We became slightly acquainted then, and increasingly so over
the past number of years. And all those years, Bill has
demonstrated faithfulness, steadfastness, commitment, ever-increasing growth
in the grace and knowledge of Christ and commitment to the
gospel of his grace. And tonight, he's finished his
race. And he's seated around the throne
of the Lamb where he wants to be, worshiping our Redeemer. But I have a question for you.
Are you afraid to die? I've been working on that almost
ever since I got the call this afternoon. How's it going to
be for you when you draw your last breath? When you leave this
world, everything, everything, everything is utter
vanity in comparison to that issue. Everything. I want you to understand
something. I wish I could look at everybody
right square now just like I'm looking at you right now, Steve.
You're gonna die. You're gonna meet God. It is
appointed unto man once to die. Now the Lord graciously, providentially,
gives us warning after warning after warning. See, it's every
now and then lets us see how quickly Nothing out of our lives. He takes a young child. How many of the twins of your
kids in the last few years been killed one way or the other? Just like that. Takes somebody
midlife, takes somebody in their old age. And we, you know, we
kind of shake ourselves a little bit and go right about our business.
Just as though, well that's over with now, we can forget about
that now. We don't have to be concerned about that anymore.
I recall several years ago I used to help fellows from West Virginia
and I had time to do it. I'd go out and help them slaughter
cattle. I used to do it every Thanksgiving day. You go out,
shoot a calf, and other cows standing around, they'd look
at it, look around for just a little bit, sniff the air, and go right
back to grazing. Cause this is not bothering me.
This doesn't affect me. That was another cow. He's gone.
He's gone. Let me tell you something. Soon
it's going to be you. You're going to meet God Almighty
face to face. Face to face. And God's going
to demand something from you. He's going to demand from you
perfect righteousness. and complete satisfaction for
your sin. You're going to die because you
deserve to die. And if you perish without Christ,
you're going to hell because you deserve to go to hell. And
that's true of every one of us. Every one of us. You've lived
your life with your fists square in God's face. You've lived your
days Breathing God's air, living upon God's bounty, constantly
shaking your fist in God's face, defying him at every turn. That's the way we have spent
our days, every one of us. There's not a commandment in
the book we've not broken and broken every day of our lives.
The wages of our sin is death. And you're going to get what
you deserve. Everyone. And that's not just
physical death, that's eternal death. Unless God intervenes. Unless God stops you in your
mad rush to hell, soon you're going to be there. Unless God
graciously opens the windows of heaven and reaches down and
opens your heart and drops his grace in you, you're going to
hell. Now I hope I've got your attention. Look here in Hebrews chapter
2, I want to begin in verse 1 and I'm moving in the direction of
verses 14 and 15. Therefore, therefore, since the
Lord Jesus Christ has finished the work of redemption, since
the Lord Jesus Christ has has put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself, and he's sat down now in the right hand of the
majesty on high. Therefore, since there is a mediator,
since there is a savior, since there is a gospel revealed, a
gospel preached, a gospel by which we may be saved, therefore
we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we've
heard." I was reading that a minute ago, Moroni, I thought about
you, Oscar. Some of you have probably been
around a long time. Been around a long time. Don't let it slip. Don't let go. Don't let go. Give the more earnest heed to
the things that we've heard. Lest at any time we should let
this. Hold on to something. And if
it's valuable, just make sure you don't have any grease on
your hands. You grab hold of it and you hold
it. You hold it with great, great tenacity. If your life depends
on the hold, you hold firmly. Hold with all your might. Rest
it, just slip out of your hands. Hold the gospel of God's grace. Hold Jesus Christ with the firm
grip of faith as though as though it were possible that you were
lifting yourself down into hell, you who believe, hold him tenaciously,
lest at any time we should let these things slip." He said,
well, how fierce is this? I've seen lots of folks come
further than any of us have thus far come, at least to outward
appearance, who finally let it slip. Look at verse 2. For if
the word spoken by angels, the word of the law given in the
Old Testament, was steadfast, that law given by the angels
of God to Moses and from Moses to the people of Israel, if that
was steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just
recompense of reward, this is what he said. God said in the
Old Testament, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. God said,
now here's my law, you do it and you live forever. Break one
commandment and you're dead. Now, here's what Paul says here.
He says, that law was said fast. And every man received a just
recompense of reward. Men and women broke God's law,
God visited them in judgment. Nations broke God's law, God
visited them in judgment. Generations broke God's law,
God visited them in judgment. Go back and ask the inhabitants
of the earth during Noah's day. Go back and ask Sodom and Gomorrah.
Go back and ask the sons of Korah. God Almighty is a God who is
just and true to his word. Now if men, by breaking God's
law, are perishing under the wrath of God forever, how much
more you and I, who've heard and despised his gospel. Will
you hear me? to have received the law at Sinai. If you had been there, back there
on Mount Sinai, when God gave his law, and Moses came down
from the mount, and Moses' face showed right there, and you saw
his face glistening so much so that the people said, Moses,
cover your face, we can't look on you. If you'd been there,
and seen that and heard God speak with thunderous voice from Mount
Sinai, inscribing his law on tables of stone. That's nothing
compared to what you've heard. You've heard the gospel of God's
free grace. You've heard the message of redemption and grace
in Jesus Christ. You've heard how that God in
his son has put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. You've
heard how that God visited his son with our transgressions and
visited our transgressions with the full extremity of his wrath
and that Jesus Christ the son of God has put away sin for all
who believe it. Now if you despise that, there's not a greater evil in
the whole world. You can talk about homosexual
perversion, you can talk about adultery, you can talk about
fornication, you can talk about drunkenness, you can talk about
murder, you can talk about rape, you can talk about child abuse,
there's no evil in the world like killing and despising the
gospel. No evil in the world. Read on. How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? What a word for God's salvation,
so great. This salvation that comes from
the great God, through the merits of Christ the great Savior, from
the great reservoir of his grace, for great sinners, and saves
us unto a great inheritance, which at the first began to be
spoken by the Lord. Now, he's talking here about
the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, this salvation has
been revealed from the beginning of time in the various pictures
and types and promises and prophecies of the old testament but now
the apostle comes and he says he says this gospel began to
be spoken by the lord jesus himself by the son of god he walked on
this earth Instead, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. I came
to die, he said. He said, I came so that I might
be lifted up so that anybody who believes on me has life everlasting. And it was confirmed to us, confirmed
to us by those who heard him, by those apostles. It was confirmed
to us by them in that they, by the special anointing and unction
and inspiration of God's Spirit, wrote down for us passages just
like we're reading right now in which they explain infallibly
what the Son of God taught while he was on this earth. It was
confirmed God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders
and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to
his own will. He gave those men the ability
to speak languages they had never learned. He gave those men the
ability to perform miracles to heal the sick, gave them the
ability, by his grace and power, to even raise the dead. And those
men were mighty, mighty because of him, because of the gift which
God gave them, not to honor them, not to puff them up, not to give
them to have bigger crowds come to their tent meetings. That
wasn't it. Oh no, it was so that when men heard these men speak,
they knew they heard God Almighty When they saw these men as they
performed these miracles, these wonders, according as the prophecy
of Joel said they would, they said, This now is true, the Messiah
has come. Redemption is accomplished. These
are God's messengers. Now, people today claim to have
those gifts. I know we're living in this day
of Pentecostal charismatic mania. Everybody seems to be jumping
on the bandwagon, and if they don't say, well, we believe these
things, well, it's all right, you know, we can't condemn that.
It's hellish. It's hellish. Those who claim
today to have these apostolic gifts are telling us that the
book of God is not complete. The revelation of God is not
finished. The message revealed in this book is not enough, but
now we've come with a new message from God, because if you've got
the gift of the Apostle Rex, then you've got the gift of getting
the inspired word of God. Those men who claim such gifts
are false prophets, or else this book is false, one of the two.
You can take your choice, but I'm telling you, they're false
prophets. And I don't care who joins the bandwagon, this charismatic
stuff is not of God. All right, read on. This message
of grace was confirmed, spoken by the Lord Jesus, confirmed
by those who heard it. Verse 5, For unto the angel hath
he not put into objection the world to come, whereof we speak. I read that a little bit ago
and I thought, what's he talking about? He hasn't been talking
about the world to come. Yeah, he has, that's the whole
message. The whole book is talking about
the world to come. I'm talking to you, Bob, about
future things. This stuff down here, this is
just temporary. Everything you see, everything
you feel, everything you touch here is just temporary and it's
vanishing away quicker than you can touch. We're told that the
world to come. That has not been put in subjection
to angels. Oh no, that's been put in subjection
to a man. A man. A man who is himself God. Read on. The one in a certain
place testified saying, what is man? You can read that in
Psalm 8, verse 4. You can read it in Job chapter
7, verse 17. What is man? Insignificant man. Fallen man. Depraved man. Ruined man. Corrupt man. What
is man? That thou art mindful of him.
Oh, wondrous one. God Almighty takes mind of us. wonder of wonders God in heaven
looks down on here and is mindful of men such as we are or the
son of man that thou visit us here he visits us with his grace
he visited us in time sent his son into this world he comes
and visits us here from time to time that thou visit us here
read on thou madest him a little lower than the angel man was
made something less than an angel but you crowned him with glory,
Adonai, and you set him over all the works of your hands."
In other words, he says, now God made man something more humble
than the angels, but he made man to be prince and king over
everything. He made man to make him highest
of dignitaries, to set him over all his creation. He says, verse
8, "...thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet."
Well, I don't see that, do you? Man doesn't look to me like there's
not much interjection under my feet, nor there's not much in
this world I control. There's not much in this world
you control. Well, what you talking about? He says you made him and
you put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he
put all in subjection under him. He left nothing that is not put
under him. But now We don't yet see it. We don't see this yet. So how
do you perceive it then? But we see Jesus. Oh yeah. Look yonder. Look yonder. Look away yonder to the throne
of heaven. There sits upon the throne of
the universe a man. A representative man. And God
Almighty has put everything in subjection under here. And one
of these days, brother, we're going to join him in his rule.
Everything. We don't see this fulfilled yet,
but we see Jesus. And that's good enough. He was
made a little lower than the angels. Look at this. Why was
he made a little lower than the angels? Why did God send his
son into this world? Why did the son of God step into
this world of time and sin and misery? For the suffering of
death. He came here to die. He came
here because he came to redeem and save his people by the sacrifice
of himself. Now we see him crowned with glory
and honor. He came here that he, by the
grace of God, should taste death for every man. Now, I can't bypass
that. The word man was added by our
translators. You can look up any commentary
you want to, or not commentary, my soul, pay no attention to
those fellows. Look up in any concordance you want to. The
word is that he, by the grace of God, could taste death forever. And there shouldn't be a period
there. There ought to be a colon. Because in the next verses he
tells us who he tasted death for. He tasted death not for
every man in the world, every man in the universe. If that
was the case, then every man in the universe would be saved.
But he tasted death for many sons, verse 10. He tasted death
for those who are sanctified, verse 11. For his brethren, verse
11. For those who are called the
children of God, verse 11. For the seed of Abraham, down
in verse 16. That he, by the grace of God,
should taste death for his elect. That's what he said. For it became
him. It was necessary for him. For
whom were all things, and by whom were all things, and bringing
many sons to glory. to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through suffering." What does that mean? The Lord
Jesus came down here in this world, the holy man, there's
no sin in him, no corruption, no defilement. He came down here,
the Son of God, and he was blessed. Well, how was he made perfect?
He was made a perfect Savior for you by the things he suffered. He could not save you otherwise. You understand that? There was
no way that the Holy God could put away your sin, but by the
satisfaction of justice. And the only way justice could
be satisfied is if he who is God assumed you in flesh, suffer
and die. All right, read on. For both he that sanctifies,
that's Christ, and they who are sanctified, that's us. are all
of what? For which cause? He's not ashamed
to call them brethren." I know what it is to be a brother,
and everybody in the family would be ashamed to say, yeah, that's
my brother. But he who is by God has taken
me into union with himself, and he's not ashamed to say, darn
for it, my brother. My brother, he's mine, one with
me, and I'm his, one with him. Saying, I will declare thy name,
verse 12. I declare my name to my brethren. In the midst of the church will
I sing praise unto thee. The Lord Jesus spoke to the Father
in covenant mercy before the world began. And he said, I will
bring my sons to glory. And I will set my brethren down
with me in glory, and I'll declare your name among them and sing
praise for eternity." Verse 13, and again, I will put my trust
in him. The Lord God Almighty trusted
his glory, his covenant, his purpose, and his will and his
people in the hands of his God. He trusted him long before any
of us ever did. He trusted him from eternity.
And the Lord Jesus, speaking to the Father as he put his trust
in him, says, Behold, I and the children which God has given
them, they're here with me, and they'll be here with me forever.
Verse 14, For as much then as children are for takers of flesh
and He also himself, likewise, took part of the sentence that
he, through death, might destroy him that had power of death. That is the devil. He comes, the seed of the woman,
and he crushes the serpent's head. by his death at Calvary. He stamped to death the devil
so that he who had power of death, not that he has somehow power
in rival with God, but he's the one who brought death into the
world. He's the one who brought misery and destruction into the
world. Now the Son of God has come and crushed him and broken
his power. And he's come by his death to
deliver them through fear of death, were all their lifetimes
subject to bondage. That's just the position some
of you are still in. Live in the fear of death, and it's not necessary. Are you afraid to die? Answer
that question. And I'm not speaking oratorically. I'm not speaking without experience. I know what it is to stand in
the immediate prospect of death. No. You see, I know that I'm
a dying man. And when I die, death will be
a welcome remission. This body that I have pampered
and overindulged is my greatest enemy. This physical form which
houses that man, Adam, my flesh. Oh, nothing is greater burden. Nothing
is greater burden. For now, it's a useful tool,
a necessary tool. But one of these days, the tool
is going to have no more use. And when you get done with the
tool, you stick it in the drawer and forget it. You're just done
with it, don't have any more use. Get a pair of shoes that
taint your feet, you pull them off, and it's like what a relief.
Well, this body's been tainted now. and death will be a welcome
relief. I try to be of every day in the
immediate prospect of leaving this world. I try to live every
day turning loose. Oh God help me turn loose of
this world. Turning loose of everything. that holds me to this clawed
collar. Turn it. I urge you to value
nothing today more than you will value it when you leave this
world. You say, well, I can't do that. Then you put too high
a price on whatever it is. Whatever it is. I have no reason to fear death
Because the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has put away
my sin. I mean put it away. Before God,
I had no sin. Before God skipped my sin, the
blood had left. Let go. Let go. And he has clothed
me with his perfect righteousness. We may be the righteousness of
God in him. And now, with his spotless garment
on, I am as holy as God on earth. You say, Preacher, you can't
say that. Oh, you can't say that unless you believe God. Unless
you believe God. Oh, but listen to me. If right where you sit, right
now, you look to the Lamb of God, confess your sin, you look to
Christ as your Savior and your Lord, I'm telling you, He put
away all your sin, and He robed you in His perfect righteousness,
and you are the righteousness of God in Him, and with His spotless
garments on, you're as holy as God's I have no reason to fear
death, but rather every reason to anticipate it. I don't know what work God yet
has for me to do. Whatever it is, I'll be content
to wait. But one of these days, when I
close my eyes to death, I breathe my last breath, Be aware of this. My most earnest
desires will be fulfilled. What I want more than anything
I'll have. It's called sinlessness. It's called communion with Christ. It's called Eternal life, life, everlasting
life, life, perfect life forever. And my greatest sorrows will
all be over. There'll be no more sorrow, no
more crying, no more sickness, no more tears, because there'll
be no more sad. there'll be no more death. Oh
may God be pleased to deliver you to yet trudge along through
this world in the bondage of the fear of death. Oh may he
give you liberty and freedom from the fear of death by faith
in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.