I want to speak to you this morning
on the subject, Four Words Which Demand Your Full Attention, Four
Words Which Demand Your Full and Undivided Attention. Now,
I'm not going to keep you in suspense. I'm going to turn in
the Bible and read three texts from the scriptures which set
before us these four words which demand our full attention. First of all, returning to Philippians
chapter 1, verse 21. Philippians 1, 21. Now listen
to the Scripture. For to me to live is Christ,
and to die is gain. Now there are two of the words
right there, to live and to die. Now turn with me to Hebrews 9,
28. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, After this,
the judgment. There's the third word. To me,
to live is Christ, to die is gain, as it is appointed unto
men once to die. After this, the judgment. Now,
Matthew 25, 46. And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. That's the fourth word, eternity. So here are four words that demand
your full attention, your undivided attention. Life, death, judgment,
eternity. I have a life to live. It does
not matter what my age, my condition, my health, my attitude, I'm alive. I may be a rich person, I'm alive. I may be a poor person, but I'm
a human being, I'm alive. God has given me a life. This
life has a beginning, This life has an end. I only have one life
to live. I'm living that life right now.
You have one life to live. You're living that life right
now. One life on this earth. Secondly, I have a life to live. I have a death to die. Now, I
know you mentioned death, and the average person just goes
to pieces. Let's don't talk about that. Let's do talk about it.
I'm going to die. It may not be long. I may die
tonight, I may die tomorrow. Somebody's going to die tonight,
somebody's going to die tomorrow. Every second, many people die. People die young, they die old.
People die in the middle life. Women die. Men die. Everybody
who's ever lived has died, with the exception of two men. Enoch
was translated that he should not see death, and Elijah was
taken to heaven in a chariot of fire. But everybody else,
think of the millions and millions and millions, yea, billions of
people who've lived on this earth, like you and me, people who were
born, people who lived and People who were 20, 30, 40, 50, 60,
70, and then they died. Everybody's going to die. We
have a life to live and we have a death to die. You may as well
face it. Let's talk about it. About the
closest most people get to talking about death is joking about it
and laughing about it and kidding about it. It's no laughing matter.
You're going to die. I'm speaking to somebody right
now. who's gonna die before this week's over. You realize that?
I've had several people hear me on television on Sunday morning
and be dead before that day is over, before the next week is
out. I preach to people all the time
in the congregation for the last time. I wish I could take the
time this morning to tell you how many people have heard me
Sunday morning or Sunday night, and I've preached their funeral
either on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. And somebody
listening to me is going to die today or tomorrow or sometime
this week. It may be you. You've got a life
to live, you've got a death to die. God says it's appointed,
it's set, it's an appointment you're going to keep. It's appointed
unto me and wants to die. And I'll tell you in whose hands
this rests, in the hands of our God. The scripture says man's
days are appointed. The number of his months are
with God. Thou hast set his bounds so that
he cannot pass. The third word. Now listen to
me. You have a life to live. You live it like you please.
That's all right. I'm going to make some suggestions
to you this morning. But you have a death to die.
And you have a judgment to face. After this, the judgment. God
will judge sin. The scripture says, every man,
everyone, shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
God, the Father, judges no man. He hath committed all judgment
to the Son. Almighty God is going to judge
man. Read Revelation chapter 20, verse
11 through 15. I saw the dead, small and great,
stand before God. The sea gave up the dead which
were in it. Death and the grave delivered up the dead which were
in them. And they were all resurrected and stood before God. What a
day! What an hour! And they were judged, every man
according to their works. The book of life was opened and
the other books were opened. And men shall be judged. Every
transgression shall receive a just recompense of reward. God will
bring every secret thing into the open. God will bring every
idle word into the judgment. God will bring everything spoken
in the closet and shout it from the housetop. He will judge sin. That's what he said. God's not
going to send any man to eternal condemnation without him clearly
being persuaded that this is the right thing to do, that he
deserves it. He's going to be convinced that
he deserves what he gets. And then the whole thing is this.
I have an eternity to spend. Now the body's going to die.
I have a life to live. I'm going to live on this earth.
However long I live, however long I'm on this earth, the days
God gives me, I'm going to live, and then I'm going to die. And
the Scripture says, I shall be judged. After this, the judgment.
And then the soul is going to rejoin the body. The Scripture
says, the day cometh when all that are in the grave shall hear
the voice of the Son of God, and they all shall live. There
will be a resurrection under light and a resurrection under
damnation. There will be a first resurrection
and a second resurrection according to the Word of God. And I know
a lot of men spend their time arguing about the time between
those resurrections, but that's not what's important. The important
thing is not how much time is between the resurrections, but
which one I have part in. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. It won't matter whether God puts
the second one off a thousand years or ten million years. I
don't want any part in that thing. I want to be raised the first
time, enter into the glories of our Lord. Satan is a subtle,
crafty individual. He takes men's minds off of the
really important things and gets them arguing about time, and
tradition, and custom, and ceremony, and prophecies, and all of these
things, when the important thing is, do you know Christ? And notice
how closely related these four words are, life, death, judgment,
and eternity. In my text, there's a comma between
them. It says, to me, to live is Christ, comma, to die is gain. But in reality, there's not even
a comma between these words. There is no separation. It's
all one continuous thing. Those who live, die. Those who
die come to the judgment. Those who come to the judgment
come to eternity. Somebody said life is but death's
vestibule. Nobody enters death except through
life. Life is death's vestibule. And
death is but the vehicle that conveys us to the judgment. And
judgment is but that which separates the just from the unjust and
sends men to their final destination. Eternity is the main thing. This
is what it's all about. This is the final stop. This
is where it all leads. Eternity. Eternity. Somebody said that this life,
compared to eternity, is like a snowflake in a blizzard, or
a drop of water in a flood, or the vestibule of a great palace
hall. It's nothing. Abraham said to
the rich man in hell, between us and you, there's a great gulf
fixed. Fixed. And no one can come from
you to us or from us to you. Can you imagine? No, you can't.
I can't either. Eternity. On and on and on and
on. Eons of time. Eternity. Millions and millions of years
and we just began. So these are the four words that
you and I need to spend a lot of time thinking about. Life.
Death. Judgment. Eternity. Now, it'd
be a waste of time for us to argue this morning over the reality
of these things and to try to prove that you know you're going
to die. There's no need for me standing
here and giving you proof and logic that you're going to die.
You know you're going to die. Your relatives have died. Your
friends have died. Your neighbors have died. They've
died every day. How do you think the florist
makes most money supplying flowers for dead people? Cemeteries,
funeral homes, dock the countryside? And there's no need of our spending
our time trying to establish our part in this. The old black
spiritual used to go, you got to walk that lonesome valley.
You got to go there by yourself. You got to stand the judgment
trial. You got to stand there by yourself. And there's no need trying to
find a way out. There's no need trying to find a way out of death.
I know that we're talking today about extending man's life to
80 years and 90 years and 100 years, and some Chinese recently
said man ought to live 150 years. Well, what's 150 years? Going
to still die. You may prolong life to 90 or
100, you may live to be 120, but you're still going to die.
And they may take you out kicking and screaming, but they're going
to take you out. And they may take you out boasting of your
righteousness, but they'll take you out. They may take you out
boasting of your works, but they'll take you out. They may take you
out trusting Christ, but one of these days, they'll take you
out. You'll die. And my friends, what we need
to spend our time doing this is this, doing this. We need
to try to find, with this one life to live, a way to find happiness
in this life. Try to find a happy life. of
peaceful, joyful life, and to find some comfort in death, and
to find deliverance from judgment. I don't want to die in my sins.
I don't want to come to the judgment and face my sins. I don't want
to hear God say, depart from me, I never knew you. I want
to live eternally with God. I want to find a hope for eternity.
True spiritual life is what I need. I need comfort in death, deliverance
from judgment, and hope for eternity. And the Apostle Paul gives us
one word that holds the key to all of this. One word that holds
the key to life, happiness, death's comfort, judgment's deliverance,
and eternity's hope. What is that one word? To me,
to live. For to me, to live is Christ. And to die is gain. That's the
word right there. If Christ is your life, you have
true life. He that hath the Son of God hath
life. If Christ is your light, you have no fear in death. You
have no death to fear. There's no sting in death. The
sting of death is sin, and sin's been removed. You have no fear
in death. Paul said, I really look forward to death. That's
what he's saying. He said, the time of my departure
is at hand. I've fought a good fight. I've
kept the faith, and they've laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
I have no fear. Really and truly, he said, I'm
in a quandary. I'm in a straight matrix to do.
I have a desire to die and go be with Christ. While I know
that to stay here is more profitable for you and for those to whom
I minister, but I'd be happy to leave here, but to die is
gain. If Christ is your hope, you have comfort in death, and
there's no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. That's
what the Bible says. There's condemnation to those
who rest on their own works. who trust their feelings or their
experiences, but there's no condemnation to them who are in Christ. And
then in Christ, we have hope for eternity. We are heirs of
God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Now, Jesus Christ is
God's heir. If you ever inherit anything
from the Father, it'll be for Christ. God has vested everything
in Christ. The Scripture says, In him dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete
in him. In Christ, we have wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. It's all in Him. God's put it
in Him. Jesus Christ is the heir of God. We inherit God's blessings
in Christ. We're joint heirs with the Lord
Jesus Christ. So Paul sums it all up. He says,
to me, to live, is Christ. Now, I know what some of you
are saying. I can tell what you're saying. The businessman sitting
out there, And he's living in all of his wealth and plush luxury
and comfort, and he's saying, to me to live is gold. To me
to live is gold. To me to live is silver. To me
to live is my possession. You've already read the paper
this morning and checked on your stocks and your bonds, you know.
Let me tell you what that's going to be worth someday. You wouldn't
even stop on the street to pick it up if the street was covered
with stocks and bonds and paper money and silver and gold. God's
going to destroy it with the whole world. And the rust of
your gold, the canker of your gold, the Scripture says, will
stand up against you in the judgment. To me, to live is gold, says
the wealthy man. And then out yonder, there are
men who've worked all week. You get up every morning, go
to work, you come home, you read the paper, you go to bed. You
get up and go to work, come home, read the paper, and go to bed.
You go through all these rituals. Sunday's kind of an off day,
and you sit around with your feet propped up. But to you,
to live is to make a living. That's all you're interested
in. You're interested in a 10% raise next year. You're interested
in friends' benefits. You're interested in hospitalization.
You're interested in this, that, and the other. You're interested
in making a living, and that's all. For you to live is to make a
living, and that's the end of it. The athlete, for you to live,
is fame. You want to see your name in
the paper. You want to hear the crowd yell. For you to live is
fame. The student, for you to live,
is education and learning. That's all you're interested
in. You're going to college, or you're going to get your master's
degree, you're working on the books, you're reading Plato and
Aristotle, and you're reading all the rest of these fellows
you know, the philosophers, and you're reading this. To you to
live is learning. And to the entertainer, to you
to live is fame and glory, and to the whirling, to you to live
is pleasure. You're planning the pleasure
that you're going to have this afternoon. You're going boating
or fishing or something else. But that's what it is to you
to live. The Apostle Paul comes in to our midst today and he
says, to me to live is Christ. To me to live is Christ. And
I imagine you're laughing about that. Maybe you are. Maybe you're
laughing in the scorn. And you're saying, well, answer
me a question, Paul. Will your Christ give you gold?
And he replies with the Apostle Peter, silver and gold have I
none. Have no bank account, having no savings account, don't need
it. My God shall supply all your
needs according to his riches and glory through Christ Jesus.
David said, I'm old. I've been young, but I've never
seen the seed of the Lord baking bread. My God will supply your
need. He'll take care of you. I don't
need silver and gold. I don't need to hoard these things.
Give us daily our bread. You know what scripture says?
You know back in the wilderness when the manor failed, they gathered
it day by day. They didn't have to store it
up. God was faithful every day, sufficient for the day as the
evil thereof. It's got to meet your needs.
Well, Paul tells me this, will your Christ give you a comfortable
living? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I know how to be
abased. I know how to abound. My living's
comfortable wherever he is. Where Christ is, there's joy.
Content with beholding his face, my all to his pleasures resign. No changes of season or place
would make any change in my mind. Wherever I am, I'm content, Paul
says. For me to live is Christ. If he blesses me with plenty,
I'm happy. If he and his providence give me trial and poverty, I'm
happy there too. To me to live is Christ. Well,
Paul, will your Christ give you respect and fame? No, no. He said, marvel not my brethren
if the world hate you. They hated me before they hated
you. A man's enemies shall be those of his own household. I
came not to bring peace, Christ said, among men, but a sword.
Men will be divided. Homes will be divided. They that
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. In
this world, you'll have tribulation. I don't promise you a bed of
roses or a road paved with roses. It may be tough. And they laugh
some more. And they say, well, Paul, will
your Christ give you freedom from sickness? I hear preachers
preach that. Freedom from death? No. All who
live in Christ die. All who love Christ died. All
who believe on Christ died. The Scripture says these all
died in faith, but they died. Paul was sick and in prison.
Epaphroditus was sick. Calvin, Spurgeon, Luther. Keep
naming the great men of the past, the men who knew God. They knew
times of great trial and great suffering. God doesn't promise
you freedom from sickness and death. I'd be a fool to tell
you that, and you'd be a fool to believe it. Our Lord said in James 5, as
any sick among you, let him send for the elders of the church
and let them pray for him. God does heal sickness. Then
what do you have? Well, I have these four things. Let's go back to our four words
again. I have life. I have comfort in death. I have
deliverance from judgment. And I have eternity to spend
with Christ. Now, first of all, life. Let me ask you this. What is your life? What is your
life? Paul said to me to live is Christ.
My life is Christ. Christ is the source of it. Christ
is the substance of it. Christ is the sanctification
of it. Christ is the joy of it. Christ is the peace of it. Christ
is the heart of it. Christ is my life. What's your
life? Well, James says in James 4, verse 14, your life is a vapor. And David in the Psalm says a
vapor is a wind that passeth away. That's what your life is.
It's a wind that passeth away. You go out in the yard, you're
working in the garden, the wind comes up, the clouds darken,
and you run in the house, and the trees begin to bend, and
the corn tops bend over, and everything blows, and the weeds
blow, and the leaves blow, and just a hard wind comes through.
In a few moments, it's all still. The wind's gone. and it's not
there anymore. That's your life. But the believer's
life is not a wind. The believer's life is a person,
a real living person who never passes away, who never fades
away, who's always here, omnipresent. Jesus Christ is my life. He's
not a wind. The unbeliever's life is a wind
that passeth away. The believer's life is Christ,
the person. What is your life? Job says it's a flower to be
cut down. It's blooming today. We grow
flowers out of our house. We love flowers. But they don't
last long, do they? You cut one, take it in the house
and put it in the water and a few days later look at it. It's blooped
over, it's dead. Throw it out. The place thereof
shall know it no more. The believer's life is not a
flower, it's a rock. Christ says it's a rock, a living
stone, immovable. Uncorrupt, incorruptible, unchangeable. A rock. We're built on the rock,
Christ Jesus. What is your life? Job 14, 2,
it's a shadow. A shadow? A shadow's nothing. Our life is not a shadow, it's
a substance. It's real, reality. What is your
life? A wind, a flower, a shadow. The believer's life is a person.
a rock substance. It's Christ. Let me ask you this,
where is your life? Where is your life? Well, you
say it's right here. Here it is, preacher. It's right
here. I can touch it. I can see it. Anybody can see
my life. I can measure it. I can measure
the length of it. I'm 75 years old. Robust and
healthy. Yeah, that's your life. You can
see it, you can touch it, you can feel it, you can measure
it. All you have is right there. That's all you have. When that's
gone, you're gone. Your life's gone. Not so, the
believer. Listen to Colossians 3, verse
3. My life is hid with Christ in God. My life is hid. You can't see it. This real spiritual
life, you can't see it. You can see my flesh. and touch
my flesh and measure the length of my days, but my spiritual
life in Christ you cannot see any more than you can see him.
You cannot hear it any more than you can hear him. You cannot
measure it any more than you can measure the length of his
life, having no beginning and no ending. It's hid with Christ
in God. You can't see it, touch it, or
measure it. I hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath
it entered the heart of man, the things God has prepared for
them that know him, that love him. But God revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. There are times I can't see it.
When the temptations are violent, when the trials are heavy, when
God seems to hide his face, but it's there, it's here with Christ
in God. And this denotes the secrecy
of it, and the safety of it, and the certainty of it. is hid
from the gaze of this world, from the knowledge of this world,
from the eyes of this world. It's hid with God, with Christ
in God. What a place of safety. You talk
about the vaults of your bank and your security places, they're
not safe places. But my life is hid with Christ
in God. When will it be manifested? Let
me ask you, what about your life? Your life's manifested right
now. That's all you've got. You better hold to it. No wonder
men fear death. When this life's over, that's
it. They've got nothing else. They've got a son or a daughter,
and that son or daughter dies. That's all. You know why people
go to pieces when they lose a son or a daughter, a wife or a husband?
That's all they've got. But if you have Christ, He never
leaves you. He never forsakes you. He's never
gone. If your loved one's in Christ,
He's not gone. He's just away for a while. He's
not gone. Where is your life? When will
it be manifested? That's all you've got right there.
But the believer, listen to this, our life is here with Christ
in God, and when Christ shall appear, then shall we appear
with him in glory. Oh, our life is going to be manifested. The believer's life is going
to be manifested. This is not it. This is not all. We shall
be revealed in the image of his Son. When we shall see him, we
shall be like him. Life, you talk about life. He
that hath the Son hath life. Flesh is not life. Christ is
life. And then we have comfort in death. Yes, I'm going to die. I'm going
to die and you are too. But I'll tell you, we're going
to die with hope and joy and peace because Christ said, because
I live, ye shall live and blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.
Blessed is the man who dies in the Lord. Death for a believer
is carnation day. One great old preacher was on
his deathbed and someone came to see him and they said, well,
you're almost leaving the land of the living. He said, no, sir,
you've got it all wrong. I'm leaving the land of the dead.
I'm going to the land of the living. This is my coronation
day. This is graduation. I'm going
to be with Christ, which is far better. We have deliverance from
judgment. There's no condemnation to them
who are in Christ Jesus. Paul said, who can condemn us? Who can lay anything to our charge?
Who can separate us from the love of Christ? If God be for
us, who can be against us? And then last of all, we have
eternal life. This is the record. God has given
us eternal life. And this light's in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath eternal life. God will wipe away all
tears from their eyes. There'll be no more sorrow, no
more crying, no more death, no more disease, no more parting.
We shall forever be with the Lord. What a prospect. That's
happiness. That's comfort. That's deliverance.
And that, my friend, is hope. And the word, the key word, is
Jesus Christ our Lord. Our substitute, our sacrifice,
our sin offering.