O Death - Where is Thy Sting?

I would like for you to turn
once again in your Bibles to the book of 1 Corinthians, the
15th chapter. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. Now the Apostle Paul is the writer
here, and he does not make a joke of death. It's real. Very, very real. It's not only real, but it's
very certain. It's certain for all men. The
Scripture says it is appointed, and it's an appointment that
we shall keep unto all men who wants to die. There is no hope
that any of us can avoid this experience. There's no hope that
we can avoid death unless our Lord should come soon. Everyone
in this congregation is going to experience death. There's
no way to avoid it. There's no bridge across the
river of death. We've got to walk through. We've
got to walk through personally. Some die young and some die in
middle age and some die old, but all die. The scripture says
God has set our bounds we cannot pass. It's certain, it's sure,
it's real, it's final. And the man who chooses to ignore
death and laugh at death and make plans only to live and not
to die is labeled by our Lord Jesus Christ himself a fool. There was a man in Luke chapter
12, verse 19, who said, soul, take thine ease, eat, drink,
and be merry. Thou hast many goods laid up
for many years. But the Lord said to him, in
that very night, thy fool. What a fool. What a fool! This night thy soul shall be
required of thee." So we're going to die. It's certain, it's sure,
and it's quite real. And then secondly, there is no
difference. Now listen to this, the way I
word this. There is no difference in the actual death of a saved
man and an unsaved man. There's no difference in the
actual death of a believer and an unbeliever. And I mean by
that, a person's relationship with God cannot be determined
by the way that he dies. Now, silly emotional superstition
says otherwise, but it's not true. Both saved and lost, sometimes
suffer long and painfully. I have known unbelievers to lie
up on beds of affliction for a long time, suffering painfully. I've known believers to have
the same experience. People who knew God and loved
God, who worshiped God, who praised God, but I've seen them agonize
and suffer And I've prayed for God to kill them. And then both saved men and lost
men sometimes die quickly and quietly. There have been many unbelievers
who have slipped away very quietly and very quickly out of this
world. They were here, then they were
gone. And it happens sometimes for
a believer to die quickly and to die quietly. Both saved and
lost sometimes die violently, sometimes die screaming, sometimes
die suddenly. The writer of that beautiful
hymn, Rock of Ages, Augustus Toplady, only lived to be 38
years old, and God took him. One of the greatest missionaries
of North America, David Brainerd, for the last few years of his
life coughed up his very moisture from his lungs. He had
TB and he suffered spitting blood for months until he died at 29. And of David Brainerd, Jonathan
Edwards said, any religion that produces this kind of man is
worthy to be studied. Robert Murray McShane died at 29, in the very flower
of his powerful ministry. The writer of the song, What
a Friend We Have in Jesus, Joseph Scrivner, a strong, godly believer
died by his own hand. So, and don't argue with me,
I'm telling you the truth. I'm not preaching emotionalism
or sentimentality or what you think is right. Oh, he died with
a smile on his face. He could be in hell. That doesn't
indicate one thing. Not one thing. Some of God's
greatest saints have died screaming in the fires and flames of martyrdom. They didn't die with smiles on
their faces, Charlie. They died hurting. suffering,
agonizing, screaming for mercy. Both saved and lost, sometimes
fear and dread death. The way a man dies does not determine
his relationship with God. His relationship with Christ
determines his relationship with God. It's not how I die. It's where in my heart lies and
my faith, trust. When Sir Walter Riley was about
to be beheaded, they put his head on a chopping
block and everybody respected him and regarded him and thought
highly of him. And the man who cut his head
off was his supposed to be friend. And he said to him before he
dropped the axe, Riley, he said, Does your head lie comfortably?
And Sir Walter Raleigh looked up and said, It matters not how
the head lieth, it's how the heart trusteth. We need to learn
that. So you remember what I'm saying
here now, and don't base your faith and belief and your religion
and theology on superstition and sentimentality. unbiblical,
unscriptural, groundless foolishness. There's no difference in the
actual death of this body of a saved man and a lost man. That
is, a person's relationship with God cannot be determined by the
way that he dies. And both saved and lost sometimes
fear and dread death. Both saved and lost sometimes
welcome death. That doesn't tell you a thing.
It doesn't prove a thing. A man's relationship with God
cannot be determined by his attitude toward death. I was reading yesterday
of, I believe it was Ridley and Latimer, I can't remember, but
two of the great old martyrs. One of them folded his arms as
the flames licked at his feet and the other one was about to,
just about to, Misbehave and and he turned to him and said
he says be a man Be a man will light a fire in
England today that shall never be extinguished Be a man Tonight
we eat supper with the Lord But it's not easy. I Tell you a man's
attitude toward death a lot of times is determined and depends
upon his state of health You may find a believer who does
not want to die at this present time. He's in good health. He's
in middle life. He feels like he's got something
to do for the glory of God. You may find another believer,
younger even, that prays for death because he has a dying
condition. Perhaps he's unhappy. So a man's
age and state of health and happiness or unhappiness determines a great
deal his attitude toward death. You may be a very unhappy person
in this world. You may not have the blessings
that God's been pleased to give someone else and you long for
death and pray for death and look for death. Don't fall out
with your brother who doesn't have that attitude because he
may just be very happy, and God's blessings and mercies may be
upon him, and he doesn't want to die. So a person's fear of
death does not determine his relationship with God nor his
desire to die. That's not it. The basis, that's
not it at all. The Apostle Paul in this chapter,
1 Corinthians 15, has been putting forth all his strength to prove
the doctrine of the resurrection. That's what chapter 15 is all
about. But now wait a minute. There
can't be a resurrection without a death. There can't be a resurrection
without a death. We talk about the glories of
the resurrection and the beauties of the resurrection and that
day when this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this
mortal shall put on immortality, and this flesh shall be conformed
to the image of Christ." Hold on now. There can be no resurrection
without a death. There can be no way to faith
except by the road of repentance. Therefore, there can be no resurrection
without walking the road of death. There can be no way to the crown
but by the cross. Therefore, there can be no resurrection
without death. There can be no way to worship
except you turn from idols. There can be no way to be raised
to life without, first of all, being committed to the Saul.
That's right. Talk about avoiding death. There's
no way to be raised without dying. Look at 1 Corinthians 15, verse
35. Listen to this. Listen to this, 1 Corinthians
13, verse 35. Some man will say, well, how
are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?
Thy fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.
Some people have been saying now, they've been doubting the
resurrection. Christ was saying that this mortal
shall put on immortality, that this body shall come forth someday
from the grave as Christ came out And they said, why, we bury
a man and his body's old and wrinkled and gray and feeble,
and we put it in the ground and it goes back to the dust. You
dig it up three or four years later and there's nothing there
but just a handful of crumpled bones. What kind of body's coming
out of there? How's he going to be raised?
There's nothing to raise. There's nothing. Take a thousand
years he'd been in the grave. There's nothing there. Throw
a body out into the sea and the fish eat it. There's nothing
there. How's he going to be raised? With what kind of body? Watch
this next verse. "...that which thou sowest is
not quick, and except it die, and that which thou sowest..."
Now watch this, verse 37. "...thou sowest not that body
that shall be..." You farmers, let me ask you something. When
you plant corn, Do you plant a whole stalk? Do you go down
to the market and buy a fresh stalk of corn with ears on it? You know, here's a stalk of corn
six feet high. It's got the tassel at the top,
it's got the leaf, it's got the corn in the, on the cob, you
know, with a shuck on it. You dig a long trench and lay
that in there because you want a corn? No. You don't sow what's
going to be. You sow one grain of corn. That's what he's saying here.
You don't sow You sow not the body that shall be, you sow bare
grain. Just one little wrinkled grain
of corn. It might be wheat, it might be
some other grain. But you take that little wrinkled,
shriveled piece of corn, and you put it in the ground, and
you cover it up. Now that's not what's going to come up. Whatever
comes up is not going to be that little wrinkled grain of corn
sticking its head out of the top of the ground. When that
corn rots, germinates, and dies, or whatever it does in the ground,
with the moisture in the ground and all these things, after a
while, peeping up from the side will come a green leaf. And then growing tall will be
a huge stalk of corn. And on that stalk of corn will
be fat, juicy grains of corn on the cob. You see, And you
take, as we get older, and as we get mutilated in an automobile
wreck, or as cancer wrecks our bodies, or heart disease, or
just anything, as we get wrinkled and gray, and to take this body
and dig a hole and put it in the ground, just like that grain
of corn, that's not what's coming up. Somebody said, well, we know
each other in heaven. Now let me tell you something.
You may not walk right up to me, Cecil, in heaven and recognize
me right off like that, because I'm going to be pretty good looking
in heaven. I'm not now, but I will be then. I'm not, I'm going to,
you wouldn't recognize that grain of corn, would you? You walk
up to that beautiful corn stalk that came out of the, it's the
same thing, it's corn, you put corn in the ground, corn came
out. But you look at that stalk of corn, you'd never think that
was that little grain of corn that went in the ground, and
we're going to be so holy and so beautiful and so conformed
to the image of Christ. I'll be the same person, just
like that grain of corn that went in the ground is the same
corn that you're going to get coming up, but it's infinitely
more beautiful, infinitely more stronger, infinitely more nutritious
in every way. It's the same, but it's different.
And the same thing's true when we're buried. And to be raised,
we've got to be buried. To live, we've got to die. To
be resurrected, we've got to pass through this grain. If you
take the grain of corn and put it on the shelf, you lose it. You can't have what you want
without planting it. You've got to bury it. You've
got to plant it. You've got to lose it to gain
it. Here's a farmer and his wife,
and they got a can of corn here. That's all they got. They're
poor. They don't have anything. And she says, Honey, that's all
we've got is that can of corn. He says, Well, I'm going to take
it out and bury it. Oh, don't do that. We wouldn't have anything
then. Well, there's no hope of ever having anything if we don't
bury it. And here I stand with a with a body that's getting
old and tired and weary, and you are too, and the Lord says,
I'm going to take you home. Well, don't do that, Lord. Well,
you want to be like Christ, don't you? Yeah, but I, you know, I
don't want to die. Well, you can't be like Christ until you
die. You want to be resurrected, don't you? Yes, Lord, I do, but
I don't want to be buried. Can't do it. Got to be buried.
Got to be buried. Got to get old, got to get wrinkled,
got to get tired. This is the way it is. This is
the way to the crown, is by way of the cross. This is the way
to life, is by way of death. This is the way to eat Canaan,
eternal Canaan land, by way of the Jordan. Got to go down in
the Jordan to come up in Canaan. And we can't shun it. And really
death, old age is really, is beautiful, because we're getting
ready to go home. God's packing our bags. God's
getting us ready. And there's a lesson here for
us now. We're going to have to learn this by experience. I want
to read you something. Mr. Spurgeon said a long time
ago, he said, we have not learned anything unless it has a bearing
on our thoughts and our lives. We haven't learned anything.
We haven't learned a doctrine until we experience it. Mere
acquaintance with the letter of truth is of small value to
any man. I must feel its influence. I
may talk about death, I may talk about resurrection, I may talk
about the sweet by and by, but I must realistically deal with
it for it to become a living truth. Now we can sing about
when we all get to heaven and when the rollers call up yonder
I'll be there and in the sweet by and by, but these things mean
nothing unless they pierce our hearts and our souls. We begin
to think along this line. And that's what Paul is thinking.
He realizes this is a route and a road he must walk. And so in
verse 55 he says, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? Where is the sting of death? Boy, you only have to open your
eyes to see the sting of death. You only have to open your eyes
to see it. It's there. Where is the sting of death?
Where is the victory of the grave? You're standing out in your garden.
You're cutting your roses. There's a little bee over there.
and he's enjoying his breakfast on one of your roses, and you're
over here cutting this road, and you disturb him, and he comes
out of that road, and he comes over here, and he stings you. It's real. It's painful, isn't
it? It's powerful. You say, where
does that bee sting? You felt it, didn't you? And
I'm telling you this. The sting of death is very, very
real. If you don't believe it, ask
the widows here in this congregation tonight who live alone and who
eat alone and who spend their times alone. They know something
about the sting of death. Ask the parents here tonight
who've been to the cemetery and laid to rest the body of a beloved
child. They know about the sting of
death. Ask the orphans as they're led away from their mother and
daddy's house to live with relatives or live in an institution. You
know, they know something about the sting of death. The voice
of a beloved pastor is silenced and the sheep begin to scatter.
Sting? A church is deprived of a strong
brother or a strong sister or a pillar for many years. That's
the sting of death. We gaze into the face of a friend,
a beloved friend or a father or a mother who will no more
hear the word of truth and who will no more share with us the
family circle or the gospel of Christ. Where's the sting of
death? Where's the victory of the grave? Don't laugh about it, it's real.
Dig up the body of your loved ones out there in the cemetery
and you'll see the victory of death. the victory of the grave,
there's nothing there. Stand out in Rose Hill Cemetery
and view the thousands of monuments, all were alive at one time, and
now they lie silently in debt. Oh grave, where is thy victory?
And one day, everybody here, one day everybody here is going
to lie in that same place and all your philosophies and your
resolutions and your humor will not deliver you from death and
from the grave. The grave says I'll have you
and I'll hold you and I'll leave pain and sorrow and anguish in
my wake. Mine shall be the victory. Mine
shall be the victory. You'll feel in your flesh the
sting of death. And your family will know the
victory of the grave. Well, look at the next verse,
56. Where'd this come from? O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. The
sting of death is sin. That little old bee comes out
of the flower, and he pops you on the hand. You know where his
stinger is? You know where that pain came
from. You know the cause of it. That bee is the cause of it.
And here's stinger. Well, what is the sting of death?
It's sin. That's what it's all about. Sin
brought death into this world. There was no death here until
Adam sinned, until Adam fell. God said, Adam, in the day you
eat thereof you shall die. From the first tear shed in the
Garden of Eden to the last tear shed on this earth. Sin is the
cause of every tear. From the first blood of Abel
to the last breath drawn by the Son of Adam on this earth, sin
is the cause of every death. Every pain, every disease, every
groan, every sorrow, every hurt is because of sin. We carry about
in our body evidence of our departure from the living God. No sin, no death. But we sin
and we die. It's sin that makes death terrible. It's sin that makes death eternal. The sting of death is sin. If I can get rid of sin, I can
take the sting out of death. I can take the eternality out
of death. I can take the finality out of
death. I can take the terror out of
death. I can take the spiritual pain out of death. If I can get
rid of that sting, the sting of death is sin. What's that
next line said? And the strength or power of
sin is the law. What does that mean? It means
this. The strength or power of that sin that gives death its
awful sting is in the abuse of the law, breaking God's law. The law being spiritual makes
it impossible for me to live without sin. That's what gives strength to
sin. It's the holiness of the law
and it's my abuse of the law. That's what gives the strength
to sin. That's what gave the power to sin in the garden. That's
what brought such awful consequences is because of what God's law
is holy, and God's law will not lessen its demands. Its demands
on my heart, on my mind, on my thoughts, God's law is unrelenting. And because of the holiness of
that law, that's the reason sin is so terrible. And that's the
reason that It gives such strength and power to death. The law demands
that sin be punished. Now, sin is the cause of death,
sin is the cause of misery, and the strength of the law makes
it impossible for me to do anything about it. The sting of death
is sin. If I can do something about sin,
if I can do something about sin, if I can cut off that stinger,
then I won't fear death. Instead of the grave being the
victor, I'll be the victor. Instead of the grave having the
victory over me, I shall have victory over the grave. And I'll
be able to face death and face the grave asking this, O death,
where is thy sting now? O grave, where is thy victory
now? In Adam, in my fall, In my rebellion,
in my unbelief, I look at death and I say, oh death, where is
thy sting? And death answers back, my sting
is in sin. Your sins, your sins must be
punished. Your sins are against God. Your
sins are abominable. Your sins are terrible. Your
sins must be punished. That's the sting of death. It's
because men sin that men die. It's because it men sin that
men sorrow. It's because men sin that men
weep. And the strength of that sin
is the abuse of the law. God's law is holy, and you've
transgressed God's law, and you've broken God's law. And that gives
the strength to sin. And that gives the power to sin.
Well, if I can do something about that sin... I hear preachers say it's no
longer the sin question. Then why do I still die? No longer the sin question, it's
now the son question. Then why are babies and men and
women dying? Why are people crying? Why all
this sorrow? It's still the sin question.
Still the sin question. Something's got to be done about
my sins. Because if nothing's done about my sins, Christ said,
if you die in your sins, you can't come where I am. That's
the problem between me and God, my sins. It's not His Son. His
Son's not the problem. My sins are the problem. It's
sin that must be punished. It's sin that brings the wrath
of God. It's your sins that have separated
you from God. If you die in your sins, you
cannot come where I am. It's not the Son. It's the sin
that's given me the problem. I've got to do something about
my sins. Now, I can take them up here and wash them and they'll
come out looking just like they were when I took them up here.
I can go through all these other motions, but now look at the
next verse. But, Paul says, but, verse 57,
thanks be to God. Oh, God's done something about
my sins. God's done something about it.
The church didn't do something about it. I didn't do something
about it. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory. Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
You have but to open your eyes to see it. You'll feel my sting. You'll experience my victory.
You'll go the route everybody else goes. You'll hurt. You'll
bleed. You'll die just like everybody
else because you've seen. And you'll go to the dust, just
like everybody else, and they'll come out and say a few words
and blow a horn, and everybody will walk off and the undertaker
will cover your body, and you'll lie silently in the grave, and
I'll have the victory. No, no death you won't either,
no grave you won't have the victory, because I'm coming out. I'm coming
out. Thanks be to God who giveth us
the victory. Salvation is of the Lord in its
eternal planning. Salvation is of the Lord in its
execution. He, in the fullness of time,
sent His Son to be my substitute. Salvation is of the Lord in its
application. He called me by His grace. Salvation
is of the Lord in its keeping, sustaining power. He keeps me
by His grace. And salvation is of the Lord
in its ultimate perfection. I shall sing someday unto Him
who loved me and washed me from my sins. in his own precious
blood, thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory. How? Where? Through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Death has spoken. Here's my sting. Sorrow, sickness, pain, suffering,
death. The grave has spoken. Here's
my victory. I'll take your body. and I'll
put it in the sod, and it'll become the home of worms, and
it'll rot and decay, and the place thereof shall know it no
more, and the winds will blow over your grave, and you'll lie
silently." But God now speaks, and God says, Sinner, you shall
now have the victory over sin, over death, and over the grave.
Why? Because, watch it, my Lord came
down here in a human body, in a human body. He took on himself
flesh. He was bone of my bone and flesh
of my flesh. He was made in the appearance,
and not only the appearance, but in reality as a man. And
he faced God's holy law. He met the law as a human being,
as a man, and obeyed it every jot and tittle. And then he took
my sins in his body. My sins were laid on him. He
took my sin in his body, and he went to the tree, and there,
there, with all of its awful sting, for every sin of every
believer, he put that stinger in Christ. And he got poured
out on Christ the wrath of the broken law, the wrath of offended
justice, the wrath of an offended holy God, the wrath of all ages,
The wrath of all hell was poured out on His Son. It was intensified
because of who He was, the holiness of His nature, the holiness of
His character, the holiness of His submission. And there Christ
met death, and there He died. He didn't swoon, He didn't faint,
He didn't go into a coma. Death took its toll, and He died. And they took Him down from that
cross and they laid him in a grave. And three days later, the women
were on their way to the tomb to anoint the body. They were
saying one to another, to the other, who shall roll away for
us the stone, so that we may anoint the body. And when they
got to the grave, the stone was already rolled away, and there
stood two men in white apparel, and one of them said, Why do
you seek the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. He's risen. Jesus Christ my Lord took the
sting out of death when he took all my sins in his body for sin
is the sting of death. You see that? The sting of death
is sin. Now death has to come. I've got to go to the grave.
But the power of it's gone, and the finality of it's gone, and
the eternality of it's gone, and the terror of it's gone because
the sting is gone. Death can't hurt me now, it can
only help me. To live is Christ, to die is
gain. Death can't hurt me. Death can
only help me. And the grave can't now hold
me. because in Christ I have the
victory. He took the victory away from
the grave, and he delivered us from the bondage of the law,
and he shall someday deliver these bodies from the bondage
of the tomb, and he'll raise them. And look back here at verse
53. It says, For this corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality,
then shall be brought to pass the saying that's written, death
is swallowed up in victory. Victory. Oh death, now where's
your sting? Oh grave, now where's your victory? Thanks be unto God which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Hear what the voice
from heaven declares. to those who in Christ die. Released from all their earthly
cares, they now reign with him on high. Then why tremble, my
dear friends, and shake at death's alarms? Death's but the voice
that Jesus sends to call us to his arms. If sin be pardoned,
I'm secure. Death hath no sting beside. The
law gives sin condemning power, but Christ the ransom died. The
graves of all his saints he blessed when in the grave he lay, and
rising forth their hopes he raised to everlasting day. Then joyfully
for our life we have, in Christ our life we'll sing. Where is
thy victory, O grave? And where, O death, thy sting? Thanks be to God who giveth us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father, use the message now for whatever
purpose it may please Thee. Help us, our Father, by the power
of Thy Spirit. not just to hear these words
with the natural ear, but enable us to hear them with our hearts, and not just to talk about these
things that shall shortly come to pass, but, Lord, that we might
experience them in our hearts and in our minds and in our thoughts,
that death, which is so real, might become to us a reality
now. that we might prepare for that day in judgment and eternity,
not just the letter of the law and traditions of religion, but
that we might experience a saving relationship with Thee. So teach
us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom,
that we might walk with God that we might look upon these things
of the earth not as an end in themselves, but just means to
make our journey comfortable and enable us to help others
to walk with Christ. Our Father, let us set our affections
on things above, not on things of this earth. They are clay,
they are flesh, they are passing away. The fashion of this world
passeth away. But our God and his glory and
our relationship with him is eternal. Give us some wisdom. Don't let us go about as dumb
animals waiting for the slaughter while we chew the grass of this
world's pleasures and possessions and then slowly we slip away
without any hope of eternal life. Use the message to disturb us
and to trouble us and yet Lord to comfort and to give confidence
in Christ. Our victory is not in ourselves
nor what we've done or ever shall do but in him who loved us and
gave himself for us. Minister to us this week as it
pleases thee for Christ's sake. Amen.

O Death - Where is Thy Sting?

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O Death - Where is Thy Sting?

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