A Funeral Sermon

Q: What does the Bible say about suffering and trials?

The Bible teaches that suffering is a part of the Christian experience, meant to strengthen faith and bring glory to God. In 2 Corinthians 4, the Apostle Paul emphasizes that suffering and trials are a common experience for believers, aligning them with Christ’s own sufferings. Paul states that even as we are troubled on every side, we are not distressed; though perplexed, we are not in despair (2 Corinthians 4:8). These trials are ultimately for our good, as God uses them to reinforce our dependence on Him and to prepare us for an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Believers can take comfort knowing that through suffering, God is working His sovereign purposes in our lives.

Q: How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

God's sovereignty is affirmed in Scripture, showing His control over all events and His purpose in every circumstance. The sovereignty of God is a fundamental doctrine in Reformed theology, supported by numerous biblical passages. In 2 Corinthians 4:1, Paul asserts that his ministry is sustained by God's mercy, indicating that every aspect of his life and work is under God’s sovereign hand. Furthermore, the idea that God does all things well—both directly and permissively—underscores His total authority over creation (2 Corinthians 4:17). This sovereignty is displayed in the life of believers, where all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). This doctrine underscores our trust in God, especially during trials and tribulations.

Q: Why is it important for Christians to understand God's plan in suffering?

Understanding God's plan in suffering helps Christians maintain hope and trust during difficult times. Recognizing God's sovereign plan in suffering is crucial for believers, as it fosters resilience and deepens faith. In 2 Corinthians 4:10-12, Paul explains that we share in Christ’s sufferings so that His life might be manifested through us. This perspective turns our focus away from immediate pain to the ultimate purpose God has in shaping our character and reliance on Him. When Christians understand that their suffering is not in vain and serves a bigger divine purpose, they can endure hardships with hope and a sense of peace that surpasses understanding. This understanding invites believers to engage more deeply with their faith and the experience of God's grace.

Q: What comfort does the Bible offer for grief?

The Bible offers comfort in grief through the promise of God's presence and the assurance of eternal glory for believers. In times of grief, the Scriptures provide profound comfort through the assurance that God is with His people. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Paul reminds believers that even though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day, and this light affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory. The faithfulness of God ensures that He comforts us in all our tribulations (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), enabling us to share that comfort with others who are hurting. Thus, while we mourn, we also hold fast to the hope of eternal life and the promise that our present sufferings are momentary compared to the eternal joy that awaits us.

I want you to open your Bibles
with me to the book of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. The messengers who came to Job. God's servant, God called him
Righteous Job, have you considered my servant? Righteous Job. And these messengers said to
Job, all of your sons and daughters, there were ten of them, all of
your sons and daughters were at their elder brother's home
having a dinner, and a great wind destroyed the house and
all your children are dead. And the scripture says Job rent
his bantam and shaved his head and fell down on the ground and
worshipped God. And he said the Lord gave and
the Lord had taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And in all this heartache and sorrow and grief, Job did not
charge God with foolishness. The messengers came to David,
beloved king, man after God's own height, and the sweet psalmist
of Israel, and they said, the young man, Absalom is dead. And David went apart and he cried
one of the most heartbreaking sobs you can read in the Bible.
Oh Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I could have died for
you. But in all this Job did not charge
God with foolishness. Very few of God's servants and
God's people have been spared great grief. Many of them have
heard tidings of this sort. And at some time in this earthly
pilgrimage, all of us, every believer, every child of God,
must face and deal with great heartache and deep, deep sovereign. And I pray that like these examples
in the scripture, God will give us grace and wisdom to remember
that he said, in this world you have tribulation and trouble,
but be of good cheer. I've overcome the world. And
James wrote, Think it not strange, something unusual, concerning
the fiery trial, fiery trial which is to try you, as though
some strange thing has happened to you. But rejoice, rejoice,
insomuch as you are a partaker of Christ's suffering. Our Lord
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. that when his glory
is revealed, you may be glad that you were permitted to suffer
for his sake." God only had one son without sin. He has no sons
or daughters without trial. I have a dear, dear preacher
friend over in North Carolina. And most of you here know him
quite well. In fact, he preached from this
pulpit just a few weeks ago, Brother Rupert Reibenbach. I've
been going over and preaching at the church there of which
he's the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church for a long, long time,
10, 11, 12, 13 years. Pastor and Mrs. Reibenbach are People who love the gospel, they
love God. Their home is a center where
people of the church gather in fellowship around things of God. They had two daughters, one 26
or 27, and Melody, 23. I've known Melody since she was
just a little girl. And she recently married, about
two or three years ago, and God gave them a beautiful little
daughter. She's a year old now. Last time I was over there, which
was six or eight months ago, we had such a delightful time
talking and visiting, hours at a time. She came to the services. I met her husband, played golf
with him. He's just a delightful young
man, Alan. Last Sunday, she was in both
services at the church. Melody was there to hear her
daddy preach both services, Sunday morning, Sunday night. But Wednesday
night, the police came and told her, your daughter's dead. She has taken her own life. Their
grief and my grief, and many of you who have known about it,
I only found out last Wednesday night after the service, is almost
too great to express, almost too great to talk about, to put
into words. How can we speak? What can we
say? Well, I call my dear friend,
Brother Rupert, after the Wednesday night service, to express my
heartache and my sorrow for him and for his wife and for Alan
and for her little Christian. And he said, Brother Henry, I
want you to come over here and preach the funeral. I told him
I was coming anyway. He said, I wish you'd preach
and bring us a message from God. Well, from the time I talked
to him, I sought a message from the Lord. You see, the suddenness
of her death and the circumstances surrounding her death seems to
tie the tongue of most people. And it would mine if I didn't
have his word. But as a minister of Christ Jesus,
our Lord, I told Rupert that I'd be there and that I would
bring the message at his daughter's memorial service. I knew her
so well and loved her very much. and know them so well and love
them so very much. And I would speak on behalf of
our God, and I would try to comfort his brokenhearted people. You
see, we preach, whether in joy or sorrow, we preach. It's fallen
my lot and responsibility as God's servant to preach. And
whether in good times or bad, we preach. And whether in life
or death, we preach. And God be glorified in his word
proclaimed. And this is the scripture to
which the Lord led me. And this is the message I brought
in that hour, 2 Corinthians 4. Paul says in verse 1, therefore
seeing we have this ministry. What ministry? Well, the gospel.
The testimony of God. the Word of God. That's our ministry.
We preach Christ and Him crucified. And seeing we have this ministry,
as God gives us mercy, as we receive mercy, we faint not. We're not going to quit. We're
not going to quit. Even in times like these, we'll
be silent before God, as Job was, as David was, as Aaron was
when his two sons perished. He held his peace. He had nothing
to say. He was silent before God. But
while we are silent before God and submissive to God's will,
you say, is this in the will of God? No question. God doeth
all things, and he doeth all things well. I hear preachers say the devil
did this and God did that. No. All things are of God, one
way or the other. He brings it to pass directly
or he permits it. But the Lord God has control
over all things. He is God. He is God, and all
things are in his purpose, in his directive or permissive will
to accomplish his purpose for you, his people. And so seeing
we have this ministry, he said, we faint not. We don't quit.
We don't quit. We don't faint. Two says, but
we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. What's
that mean? We're the same in public or private.
We're not hypocrites about this matter. I can't tell you to believe
in the sovereignty of God and then not believe in it myself.
I can't preach to you that God doeth all things well. He's too
wise to make a mistake and too good to do wrong and then not
believe it myself. That's dishonest. It's dishonest
to ascribe one thing to God and then to protect our theology,
ascribe something else to Satan. That's dishonest. And we've renounced
these hidden things of dishonesty. We believe what we believe in
joy or sorrow. Our religion and our faith is
not just for the sunshine, it's for the rain. We believe what we believe today
as well as yesterday. We've renounced the hidden things
of dishonesty. We're not walking in craftiness.
We're not seeking to deceive people. We're not handling the
Word of God deceitfully. We're not resting the Scriptures
out to make them fit what we want them to say. But we're commending,
by the manifestation of the truth, we're commending ourselves to
every man's conscience in the sight of God. You judge whether
or not we're telling you the truth from the Word of God. What I believed Wednesday when
I stood here to preach is the same thing I believed Wednesday
night when I held that message in my hand that you handed me,
Melody's dead. Sweet 23-year-old mother is dead
by her own hands. I didn't change my theology then.
God's on the throne now, God's on the throne then. God will
be on the throne tomorrow. And whatever comes in our lives
and whatever happens in our lives, our God ordained it. Because
all things work together for the good, the eternal good, for
those who love God, to those who are called according to his
purpose. Any less, God is not worthy of worship. Any less, God is not worthy to
be proclaimed. God is God. He doeth all things
well. Is anything too hard for God?
So he says we have this message and we don't faint, we don't
surrender, we don't quit, whatever happens. Because we've renounced
the hidden things, the hypocrisy of religion, the hypocrisy of
a man-made religion that's this and that and neither and nor
or perhaps or maybe it's God. Now that he said in verse 3,
I know a lot of people don't see this. I know a lot of people
don't believe this. The gospel of God's sovereign
grace, the gospel of God's redeeming grace, the gospel of God's purpose
in Christ, our gospel is hid, I know that. It's hid to them
that are lost, that are unbelievers, that are walking in darkness.
They don't see it, because he says here in verse 4, the God
of this world, the God of The God of false religion, the God
of idolatry, the God of this world, hath blinded the minds
of them that believe not." What is it they believe not? They
believe not God is God. They believe in a God, but not
the living God, not the sovereign God, not the almighty God. They
have a religion, but it's not the religion of the cross, of
the effectual, sufficient, redeeming work of Christ Jesus the Lord.
They have a religion, but they believe not this gospel. of God's
redeeming grace. The God of this world has blinded
their mind, lest that light of the glorious gospel of Christ. What is this glorious gospel
of Christ? It's the gospel of His glory.
He gets all the glory. We don't get any of the glory.
God chose me. God sought me. God found me. God called me. God revealed Christ
to my heart. God keeps me and God will exalt
me. It's all of grace. But they don't
see that. And I'm not mad at them because
they don't see it. The only reason I see it is God showed it to
me. But they don't see it. They have eyes, Christ said,
but they don't see. They have ears, but they don't
hear. They have hearts, but they don't understand. Verse 4, we
preach. We preach not ourselves. That's
not our message. I wish we could convince men
everywhere. We're not preaching ourselves. We're preaching Christ. I'm not preaching my thoughts.
Why do you think we go verse by verse, verse by verse through
this way? To keep from preaching our thoughts.
Preach His Word. We preach not to please men.
If I was seeking to please men, I wouldn't preach the gospel.
I'd preach what men wanted to hear. But we preach Christ. Now, I'll
tell you this. Whatever happens to me, Whatever falls my lot,
whatever God's pleased to send in my life, it has no bearing
on the truth of this work. People look at what has happened
to this dear pastor. The people of this world, they
say, well, that's not happening to somebody over here who doesn't
believe the gospel. That's not happening to the rich,
and to the wealthy, and to the world, and to the people of this
world. They're getting along fine. David
had a problem with that, too. You read Psalm 73 sometimes. Read Psalm 73. David, his son
Absalom was killed. His son Amnon violated his sister,
and Absalom killed him. That's what turned Absalom away. Others, his whole family. was
a troublesome family. And David said, I looked over
here and saw the unbeliever, and the whirling, and the wicked,
and they were prospering, and God had wrung out a full cup
to me. And he said, I was bothered by
that. That troubled me. Why, God, are
you dealing with me so harshly, and you let them go their way?
Prosperous, happy, everything they touch turns to gold. And he said God took me to the
sanctuary and showed me two things. He showed me their end and he
showed me mine. He showed me their future and
he showed me mine. And he said that broke my heart.
And I cried out to God, forgive me for being a fool. Forgive
me for looking on things temporary and things that fade away and
failing to look. yonder to that inheritance that
he's reserved for us. We're not preaching. I said don't
judge the Lord by me. Judge him by his word. Don't
judge the grace of God and the mercy of God with feeble sense
and what happens to you, what happens to me. It's for his glory
and our good. Your children don't understand
you sometimes when you won't let them do what they want to
do. They'd never brush their teeth if you didn't make them. They'd never go to bed if you
didn't make them. They'd never pick up a book if you didn't
make them. That's right. And they don't understand what
I used to mean. Why our other kids are staying up and you put
me to bed at 8.30. You're a mean daddy. No, you're a good daddy. But they don't know it. You're
looking beyond tonight. You're making me brush my teeth
twice a day and they don't make their kids brush their teeth.
You're looking to the future. You spank me when I misbehave. Other kids don't get spanking.
They don't get correction. You're looking to the future.
And my father has a good future for me. He's got to deal with me now in order that I might enjoy that
future. That's right. That's right. And the only reason
I say this is verse 5, verse 6, listen. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Christ Jesus. That's the reason I sing, God
giving me light. That's the reason you sing, and
that's the only reason. God has, God who back yonder
when the world was encased in darkness, God said, let there
be light, and the sun bathed the world in light. And one day
in my darkness of religion and self-righteousness and selfishness
and greed and covetous and whatever, God said, let there be light. And I saw some things I'd never
seen before. And I'm seeing them each day,
things I've never seen before. God just keeps saying, let there
be light. Let there be light. We don't walk in darkness, we
walk in light. And nought have I gotten but
what I receive. Grace hath bestowed it, since
I have believed, boasting excluded pride. We are based, we are on
the center, saved by grace. Salvations of the Lord. And so
is everything else that takes place in a believer's life. It's
up to God. So you be prepared for whatever
God has for us. And here's the reason, look at
verse 7. We have this treasure. What a
treasure to know God. What a treasure to believe His
sovereignty. What a treasure to believe His
gospel. What a treasure to have Christ, my wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. What a treasure. What a treasure
to trust Him. But we have this treasure, listen,
verse 7, in an earthen vessel. an earthen vessel. This faith,
this knowledge, this life of God is in an earthen vessel. It's subject to all the winds
and storms and floods and troubles and sorrows of this world. That's right. We're subject to
all these things. And throughout your life, if
you live long enough, you'll taste all of We have this treasure in a clay
pot. Why? That the excellency of the
power may be of God, not us. It's His power, not ours. It's
His glory, not ours. It's His work, not mine. It's
His victory, not mine. Who's weak that I'm not weak?
Who weeps that I do not weep? Who has sorrow that I do not
have sorrow? God is not going to let any of
his people be satisfied here. We're all like David will be
satisfied when we're awake with his likeness. He's just not going
to allow us to get involved in this so-called world and life
to the point that we have any satisfaction whatsoever. He's
got to wean us away from it and set our affection on things above.
Now, it can be done easily, it can be done hard, whatever it
takes, but he's going to wean us away. He's going to have the
glory, one way or the other. He says in verse 8, we're troubled
on every side, never free from one trial or another. I told
the people over there yesterday, I said, I hear this news and
I go through this And we go through this together, and then I think,
now what's next? There's a next. See, so that's
right. There's a next for us, isn't
there? What's next? But it's all right. The Father
will order it. We're in trouble, but we're not distressed. We're
not distressed. We have His peace. And we're
perplexed. Oh, perplexed. My friends, I
don't have the answers. I don't understand. I don't know
why. I don't know what the Lord intends. I don't know what he
has purposed in this. I just do not know. I do not
know. I'm perplexed. But I'll tell
you, I'm not in despair. You know what he said? I'm not
in despair. I'm not despaired. No, sir. persecuted, despised, as was
our Lord, misunderstood, but we're not forsaken. And we're cast down, but we're
not destroyed. You see, verse 10, listen to
this. Verse 10 says, we always bear
about in our body the dying of our Lord Jesus. that the life
also of Jesus might be manifest in our body. If we don't suffer
with him, we can't reign with him. Isn't that what it says?
If we suffer with him, we'll reign with him. Whatever God
has to send to us and must send to us and wills to send to us
to strengthen faith, to bring our faith in Christ and Christ
alone, then so be it. So be it. Now, verse 11 and 12.
God's people and God's ministers in particular must pass through
certain trials in order that they might be a blessing to others. Now listen to this. Paul is speaking here of himself
and the apostles in verse 11. He said, we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. that the life also of Jesus
might be manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh
in us, but life in you. God has to train the teacher
before he can teach. God has to deal with the leader
before he can lead. God has to deal with the person
whose comforts so he can You see what I'm saying? Turn
back to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. Listen to this verse. That's like one time Brother
Barnard said this, he said, now don't ask God to use you. He
might. If a butcher is going to use
a knife on a piece of meat, what's he do first? That's right, he's got to put
that knife through some, an ordeal. He's got to take the dross off
and fix it so it can do the job. And when God's going to use a
person to comfort another, he's going to sharpen it. He's going
to deal with it. Now listen to it. 2 Corinthians
1, verse 3, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort
them which are in trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God." That's it, isn't it? You can't preach. this message of repentance, that
you've repented. You can't preach this message
of the glory of God until you've seen it. You can't preach this
message of man's depravity and wickedness and need of mercy
until you've been there. And you can't walk up to somebody
whose heart is crushed and broken under the hand of God if you
hadn't had the same experience. See that verse 12, death worketh
in us, and the purpose is that life
might work in you. Now then, verse 13, listen to
this. So, we having the same spirit
of faith, according as it is written, I believe, and therefore
I must focus. David said this, I believe, therefore
I speak. You don't believe something until
you experience it. When you experience it, you believe
it. That's exactly right. David experienced it, and Paul
said, I believe, and therefore I speak. That's the reason I
preach what I preach. I believe it. I'm not a professional
preacher. This is not a job with me, it's
a calling. God's called me, revealed to
me the gospel. I preach what he taught me, what
I've learned to experience. I'm not trying to build a church.
I'm not trying to get converts. I'm not trying to build a following. I'm not interested. I've got
nothing to prove. I've got something to preach. I've got nothing to
prove. Not a thing. Somebody says, well, I don't
agree with your theology. That's all right. That's all
right. It's the theology of God. It's
the study of God. It's the truth of God. A truth
of God. And you won't be the only one
that hasn't believed this. But God's greatest servants have
believed it. And God used them mightily. So I preach what I
believe. I believe what I've experienced. And verse 15 says this. Listen. Verse 14 says this, "...knowing
that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also
by Jesus, and present us with you." What's he saying? The living
God who sent His Son into this world to be our surety, to be
our righteousness, to be our atonement, who suffered Him to
be crucified, raised Him from the dead. And I'll tell you this
promise is true. He's also going to raise us.
He's going to raise us, and He's going to present us. No matter
the weakness, no matter the failure, no matter the trial, no matter
the sin, He's going to present us. He presents us. We're not
going to present our works and, Lord, I preached in your name
and cast out devils. He's going to present us. And
He's going to present us before His presence. Think about that.
In the presence of God, Christ is going to present us. And Jude
said, with great joy. I told the congregation over
there and the dear pastor, I said, Brother Rupert, I said, don't
judge. There was the body of his daughter there. She had taken
her life. Brother Rupert told me afterwards,
he said, Brother Henry, I'm glad you met that situation head on.
I said, I felt led to meet it head on. There it was. Don't judge this act, I told
them, separately. Don't judge it. God who forgives
my first sin will forgive my last sin, whatever the sin. No one knows another person's
heartache and tension and pressure, depression, despondency, do you? No one knows the pressures that
some others are under. I told my Sunday school class
this morning, I said, if you get in this situation of depression,
despondency, and back yourself up in a lonely corner, reach
out to somebody. Talk to somebody. Let somebody
help you. Because they do care. And this
could happen to any of us. I don't know what I'm going to
do tomorrow. I don't know what condition this man, I may not
know my name tomorrow, but he knows my name. I don't know what's going to
happen, but if you're going to start defining sin, if you're
going to make, and I know this is typical, people say, well,
if you commit suicide, you can't be a believer. Where is that
in the scripture? I tell you, if you want to define
sin, you might look in the book of Matthew. When some people
came to our Lord, some religious people, and they said, what's
the greatest law? What are they asking? Well, what's
the greatest law? No, they're asking, tell me the
greatest law so I can find out the greatest sin. Isn't that
what they're asking? If it's the greatest law, then
the greatest transgression. Christ said the greatest law. is to love God with all your
heart, then the greatest sin is not to love God. Isn't that
right? Why, sure that's right. If the
greatest law is to love God with all your heart, then the greatest
transgression is not to love God. And the second, he said,
is this, to love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't love
your neighbor, you're guilty of the second greatest transgression. Ah, did you notice that song
we sang a while ago, the second verse? Oh, my iniquity, crimson
hath been, infinite, infinite sin upon sin, the sin of not
loving thee, the sin of not trusting thee, infinite sin. Bonar knew what I'm talking about.
He said it first, better not do it. I had a preacher friend
who preached from this pulpit a hundred times at least, no
exaggeration, a hundred times. One of the most able pulpiteers
you've ever met. He knew the scriptures, had a
mind big as a washtub. And he brought a series of messages
one time on the impossibility of a person being saved who takes
his life. Not one message, not two, but
a series. A young man, 19 years of age,
had taken his life, who was a member of that church. And he brought
a series of messages on the impossibility of a person being saved who takes
his life. And about five years later, the
preacher took his life. When I say this, if we don't
learn from these things, when are we going to learn? God said,
with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you. God Almighty will measure out
for you by your own bushel. So be careful. save you and what
I said to them. Be careful judging God by feeble
sense. Judge not the Lord by feeble
sense, but trust him for his grace behind the crowning providence. He hides a smiling face. I'm not prepared to say who's
saved and who's not saved, but I tell you this, I judge a man's
salvation by his heart relationship with God, not by something he
says or does under some kind of pressure. I'll tell you this,
David killed one of his best friends to cover his sin. Remember? I'd rather take my life than
take yours. That's right. Given the choice, huh? Given
the choice. Peter sat down one day publicly
and denied his Lord three times. He said, I do not know Him. Now you want to talk about the
quality of sin. I had rather, I believe, I thought
this so, I'd rather take my life than stand up here this morning
and say, I do not know Him. Come on, hadn't you John? God forgives all manner of sin,
but there's one sin he won't forgive, and that's not believing
on Christ. That's right. You see, verse 15 says, these
things are for your sake. I'd much rather think of Melody
when we were sitting there in the den talking about the gospel
than to think about this on that lonely road when she took her
life. I don't know why. But I do know this, if she believed
the gospel, and I've never had from her one objection to the
gospel, it's always been positive, I'd rather believe that she did
believe And I rather think maybe she did. Doesn't that cloud your
thinking? No, sir. I know were it not for
the grace of God, what this flesh is capable of now. And you better
learn. We are what we are by the grace
of God. And verse, I won't quit. These things, verse 15, are all
for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving
of many, redound to the glory of God. For which cause we think
not, and though our outward man perish, and it does. Well, do
you know that? It is. This old outward flesh
is perishing. But I tell you this, I'm getting
younger inside. The new man is renewed. The inward
man is renewed day by day. This body is going back to the
dust. God's preparing this soul to take to him. And this old
body is getting weaker. and worn, and it's getting ready
to leave here. That old Stuart Hamblin song,
This Old House, has got a lot of truth in it. It's in bad need
of repair. But I have to tell you something.
And my inward man, God's repairing it, making it like Christ. Letter verse 17, for our light
affliction. What does that mean, light affliction?
These things are not light, pastor. Well, listen. it comparatively. No, if you look at them like
they are now, they're not light. About as heavy, I told Rupert,
I said, this is the darkest valley you'll ever walk through. I tell
you, compared to his glory and what we shall enjoy, this is
light. That's what he said, compared to his glory. And it's verse
7, it's for a moment, and it worketh for us exceeding Weight
of glory. Listen to the last verse. Let's
don't look at things which are seen. Don't do that. But let's look at the things
which are not seen by the natural eye. For the things that are
seen are temporal. They're just here today and gone tomorrow.
And whether I live to be 70 or whether I live to be 65, 66,
I'll be gone either way. And a hundred years from now,
it won't matter whether I live to be 66, or 69, or 70, or 80,
or 90, or whatever, it doesn't matter, or 21. I'm still gone. And with Christ in my heart,
and faith in Christ, I'm going to be with Him. So what, just
quit looking at these things, and, and, uh, something like
this happen, well I'm through, I'm devastated, not me. God was
on the throne yesterday, he's on the throne today. Absolutely. Because it's going to happen.
Why are you preaching this to us? Because let's get ready for
the hand of God to visit us. And recognize it is the hand
of God, and recognize it's for our good, and recognize it must
come. And prepare ourselves to act like God's people ought to
act. Thanks be unto God. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
That's the victory. God moves in a mysterious way
his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps on the
scene. He rides upon the storm. His
purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have
a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. All right, Mike,
come lead us in that hymn, please.

A Funeral Sermon

What does the Bible say about suffering and trials?

How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

Why is it important for Christians to understand God's plan in suffering?

What comfort does the Bible offer for grief?

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A Funeral Sermon

What does the Bible say about suffering and trials?

How do we know God's sovereignty is true?

Why is it important for Christians to understand God's plan in suffering?

What comfort does the Bible offer for grief?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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