and I'm entitling this message
to you, I Watched a Believer Die. I Watched a Believer Die. About three years ago I was sitting
in my study preparing a message one Tuesday morning. There was
a knock at the door and I told the person to come in. The door
opened and A young man, thirty years of age, came in. I found
out when he introduced himself as Brother Raymond Gearheart.
He came over and sat down beside the desk, and I said, ìWhat can
I do for you?î He said, ìI met a man on the street this morning
who told me that youíd been to Mexico to visit the mission field.î
And I said, ìYes, sir, Iíve been two or three times.î He said,
well, I'm a preacher, and I preach in the Free World Baptist Churches
in this area. And he said, I've always wanted
to be a missionary. And this man told me that you
had been to the mission field and wanted me to come and talk
to you about it. Felt like you could help me to
learn something about the mission field. He said, I had in mind
going down to Mexico or Guatemala or Honduras or one of those Central
American countries. So we sat and talked a long while
about the mission field. He didn't know a great deal about
mission work or the type of preparation and the things that were required
for mission work, and I told him what I knew. And he said,
Will you be having prayer meeting here tomorrow night? I said,
Yes sir, I'm working on a message now for prayer meeting. He said,
I'm going to come and hear you preach. I like the way you talk.
And so the next night he came to the prayer meeting service.
And he came the next Sunday and brought his family. And every
Sunday after that, for a good while, and one day came by the
study, and he had a tape in his hand. And this is an incident
that brought us closer together than any other thing. I came
to admire him, and to see that he was sincere in his seeking
the Lord, and the Lord's will, and the Lord's mercy, and the
Lord's grace, and I think he came to appreciate me more. He handed me the tape, and he
said, This is a sermon which I preached last week down at
a certain church. And he said, I want you to listen
to it. And he said, You're older than I am. You've been in the
ministry a long time. I want you to listen to this
sermon. I want you to criticize it. I said, Raymond, I'm not
going to do that. I said, now, that's between you
and God, and I don't want anybody criticizing my messages. I feel
like God gives them to me, and I'm certainly not going to listen
to yours, I hope, with a critical spirit and try to tear it apart. No, he said, I'm serious. He
said, I want you to listen to it. I said, now, Raymond, if
I do, and I tell you what I find, it's going to make you mad, and
I don't want to make you mad. No, he said, He said, I can take
it. And I found out he could in more
ways than one. So he handed me that tape, and
I listened to it. And when I got through listening
to it, he came back by. And he sat down. I said, now
Raymond, a few years ago, a preacher much older than I, did the same
thing to me I'm about to do to you. I said, I'd been preaching
about three or four years. I didn't know a thing. I didn't
know the gospel. I had pastored a church, and
I said, he tore me apart, and he made me awful mad. But I listened
to him, and I learned something. I believe God has blessed me
since then. And I said, Raymond, there wasn't
any gospel at all in that sermon you preached, not a lick, not
a lick. And I said, what my advice to
you is that you sit down and listen and study the Word of
God and learn the gospel before you try to speak again in a church.
And he took took my advice, and we became very close. And he
sat and listened, and he studied. And it wasn't but a short time
that he learned the gospel. When a man wants to know the
gospel badly enough, God will reveal it to him. If any man
will to know the will of God, God will reveal his will. And
that boy learned the gospel. Well, about two years ago, he
was sick in and out of the hospital, And I suggested to him one day
that we go to the U.K. Medical Center and just try to
find out exactly what was wrong with him. So he and I drove down
there, and we met a physician. We talked to him, and they ran
some tests. And then he went back two weeks
later to find out the results of the test. It was on Wednesday
again. And he came by my house when
he returned from Lexington. It was about two o'clock in the
afternoon or three, and we sat down in the den, and he said,
well, Henry, they told me that I have two years to live. And
he said, I'll tell you this, he said, I'm thankful that God's
revealed Christ to my heart, and I know the gospel, and I
know him, and I say this, his will be done. Now, you call the
elders of the church together and ask them to pray for me and
pray that God will heal me. But if it's not God's will to
heal me, I want to live these last two years for the glory
of Jesus Christ, just what Don prayed a few minutes ago. I want
him to be glorified in me, whether by life or by death. Well, about
six months ago, the doctor told me he had six months to live.
He spent three of those last six months in the hospital, test
after test, experiment after experiment, and all the time
no complaints, no rebellion. no murmuring, always with this
word, God's will be done. God's will be done. People would
go to visit him to strengthen and comfort him, and they'd come
away strengthened and comforted. You know that because many of
you went. Everybody that came into his room either had to listen
to one of my sermons on tapes or listen to Raymond tell him
about the gospel. That's a fact. There was a black
orderly down in that hospital, Veterans Hospital in Lexington,
named Blondell. And one day I was down visiting
Raymond, and he said, Stay here, I want Blondell to meet you.
He'd been listening to you on tape. I'd been playing your tapes
for him every time he'd come in my room. After a while, Blondell
came in, and we got acquainted. Blondell brought his wife up
to hear one of my tapes. And all over that floor of the
hospital, people were listening to those tapes and listening
to Raymond, witness for Christ. Now some people call that courage.
I call it grace. I call it the grace of God. It's
impossible for human nature to produce that kind of courage
in the face of death. It can't be done. It has to be
grace. And then a few weeks later, the night, I call it the night
of the real battle and the high fever, Raymond's fever was 105.8. And I was down there visiting
him. It was Tuesday afternoon. Brother Payne and I and our wives
were down visiting him, and we started to leave. And he said,
Henry, will you stay with me tonight? I think I'm going to
leave here tonight, just exactly as I said it right there. And
I said, well, yes, I will. And Juanita and I were with him
all night long, and toward the morning he looked up at me and
he said, I wish the Lord Jesus had come through that door and
said, Raymond, let's go home. Well, he survived that week,
and then he came down to Belfont Hospital, and these were his
words. I never have seen a man leave
this earth praising the Lord quite like this young man did,
thirty-three years of age. He demonstrated the grace of
God. He glorified the name of Christ.
He did not talk about himself nor his sufferings. He talked
about his Lord. And several times he said to
me, it won't be long now. And just a night before the Lord
called him home, I was there with him and he said, Henry,
you preach my funeral and you tell them about Christ. And he
named his pallbearers to me, each one of them. And then he
looked at me and he said, before you leave, I want you to thank
God for all his mercy to me. And I was standing on one side
of the bed and Charlie Payne was standing on the other. And
I started quoting some scripture. I quoted the 23rd Psalm. And
I quoted another verse of scripture, too. And I looked at Raymond. I think Carol was there, too.
And I said, Raymond, what's your favorite verse of scripture?
And without a moment's hesitation, he said, Philippians 1.20. And
I said, can you quote it? You remember this? He said that
Christ may be glorified whether by my life or by my death. And
it was a struggle to say it, but it came from the depths of
grace, the depths of faith, the depths of deep fellowship with
Christ. And I came home and I started
looking at that verse, and I've looked at it now for two and
a half days. And it just lives for me because
it was born of experience. It was born of deep fellowship
in a deep valley with the living God. And I covet that fellowship
and that experience more than I covet any single thing on this
earth, don't you? And that young man left here
yesterday morning to go and be with his Lord. But I wanted to
say some things about him. And I want to look at this verse
of Scripture for a few minutes with you. Now open your Bibles,
Philippians 1, and let's go to verse 12. Now this is the first
thing we need to see. This, Raymond evidently had been
looking at this passage of Scripture ever since he found out that
he didn't have long on this earth. And he just kept looking at it
until it became such a part of him that even just a few hours
before he left here, just a few hours, while under sedation,
and while receiving oxygen through oxygen tents, and while in a
very deep, deep illness. When my words said to him, what
is your favorite verse of scripture right now, it just, just like
that, it was such a living part of him. And it can be for you
and for me. But in verse 12, now look at
this first. Paul says, But I would you should
understand, brethren, this is the first thing I want you to
understand, that the things which happened unto me, the things
which happened unto me, turn back, hold that place there and
turn back to 2 Corinthians. Now Paul, 2 Corinthians 11, the
Apostle Paul went through some terrible experiences, through
some terrible agonies. through some terrible afflictions.
He lists them in 2 Corinthians 11. He says in verse 23, are
they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I shouldn't
be talking about this. I should talk about Christ, but
I'm going to tell you some things. I am more, if they're ministers
of Christ, I am more, in labors more abundant, in stripes above
measure, in prison more frequent, in death often. Of the Jews,
five times I received forty stripes, save one. He was scourged five
times. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.
A night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeyings often,
in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own
countrymen. It goes on, verse 27, "...in
weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, in hunger, in thirst,
in fasting, in cold, in nakedness." He names these things that he
has endured, and he said, "...these things which have happened to
me." These things which have happened to me, these experiences,
these afflictions. Now read on, verse Philippians
1, 12. Look back at the text. "...these things which happened
unto me." have fallen out rather unto the futherance of the gospel.
You see what I'm saying? Raymond always wanted to be a
preacher. He did just that. He's doing
that right now. He's preaching to you. He's preaching
to me. He always wanted to be a preacher.
But you know all of God's preachers are in the pulpit. That's one
of our terrible failures. We seem to think that the only
place to preach the gospel is from a pulpit. We seem to think
the only place to preach the gospel is some fellow that's
licensed and ordained and steps into a pulpit and pastors a church.
But every one of you are preaching some kind of gospel every day
by what you say, by your attitude, in your contacts with others.
Raymond preached the last six months of his life. He did more
preaching than some people do in their whole life, and the
wonderful thing is he preached the truth. And God put him in
such a position that he could really tell out of experience.
He could have never told some of the things he told if he hadn't
have been in the particular situation where God had put him. God may
raise a man up for one message, God may raise a man up for one
hour. He may raise a man up for one
month, or even one year, or even six months. And my congregation
may be one person. My congregation may be just a
handful of people in and out of a hospital room to come and
listen to God speak to them through me. Christ said one time, for this
cause came I to this hour. And it may be, and I believe
it, that Raymond Gearhart, all of his life, his life of loneliness,
he really never had a family. He learned something about loneliness.
In his life of coming to know the gospel, coming to know Christ,
his desire to be a missionary, his desire to preach, his desire to help others, It
may be that God put him through, and I believe it was, all that
experience to come down to this last six months so that he could
speak to me, so that he could speak to you, his family, and
all who came in contact with him. And I'll tell you this,
when God speaks to us in such a faithful way at such a great
cost, we'd better listen. We'd better listen. If God will
put one of his servants and one of his human instruments through
such great sorrow and through such a terrible experience in
such a deep valley in order to get us the true gospel, when
that servant delivers his message and God takes him home, well,
our blood is not on his hands. Our blood is on our own hands
if we don't listen. We preach not ourselves, we preach
Christ. Raymond never talked about himself,
he talked about his Lord. That's a fact. And he probably
wouldn't want me to do what I'm doing right now, talk about him. But I'm talking about him because
he deserves to be talked about, and because he was faithful to
the things that we believe. And he was faithful unto death. Paul said, my departure is at
hand. I've fought a good fight, I've
kept the faith. And that's exactly what he did,
even in the most difficult, difficult circumstances. Now the second thing, look at
verse 20. Paul says, "...according to my
earnest expectation and my hope." My expectation and my hope. What
is yours? I know what Raymond's was. His
expectation and his hope was expressed in the latter part
of verse 20, that Christ may be magnified, the word is glorified,
in my body, whether it be by life or by death. That's my hope, that Christ might
be glorified. My hope is that in the covenant
of God's grace, I am. My hope and my expectation is
that in Christ's sheepfold, I am. That in His sufferings on Calvary,
I am. That in His Holy Spirit's divine
call, I am. That in His kingdom of love,
I am. That right now in His intercessory
prayers as our great high priest at the right hand of God, that
I am. that in the resurrection of life, when Christ shall call
forth his own from the grave, that I shall be there, that in
his kingdom of glory I shall ever dwell. That's my expectation. That's my hope. And I shall not
be ashamed. Look at that next line. In nothing
I shall be ashamed. I'm not ashamed now of the gospel
of you. God's taught us the gospel, and
I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed of his cross.
I'm not ashamed of his word. I'm not ashamed of his people.
I'm not ashamed of Christ my Lord. I hesitate to tell this, but
I'm going to tell it anyway, because it's only right to be
straightforward with people whose eternal destinies are at stake.
There was a preacher stood at the foot of Raymond's bed, night
full ice, and this is what he prayed. Lord, you know Raymond's
a good little boy. Raymond didn't believe that.
That's a lie. Raymond believed that he was
a sinner saved by the grace of God. Raymond believed that he
had a good Lord and a good Savior and a great God that's able to
reach to the depths of sin and lift the fallen, that's able
to reach to the depths of sin and lift the naked, that's able
to reach in the very cesspool of iniquity, and though your
sins be as scarlet, make them white as snow. If my relationship
with God depends upon my works, I'll go to hell. But if my relationship
with God depends on the death of my Savior, I shall reign forever,
because He can't fail. I am not ashamed of His cross.
By His cross I live. By His cross I am cleansed. By
His cross I am made whole. I am not ashamed of His death
on Calvary's mountain. I am not ashamed of Christ the
Lord. Jesus, shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of Thee?
Ashamed of Thee, whom angels praise, whose glories shine through
endless days? Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend
on whom my hope of heaven depends? Ashamed of Jesus, sooner far
let heaven blush to own a star. Ashamed of Jesus, yes, I may,
when I've no guilt to wipe away. No tear to wipe, no good to crave,
No fear to quell, no soul to save, Till then, nor is my boasting
vain, Till then I'll boast the Savior slain, And oh, may this
my glory be, That He's not ashamed of me. My gospel is not the gospel of
works. That's exactly what I told Raymond
three years ago sitting in that study. When you stand and tell
people they'll go to heaven by being good, and they'll go to
heaven by joining the church, and they'll go to heaven by doing
the best they can, you're lying to them. By the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified. That's what scripture says. By
work shall no man be justified in the sight of God. The gospel
is a person. The gospel is not a denomination.
It's not a church. It's not a law. It's a person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. and He came down here from heaven
and clothed Himself in human flesh, God in the flesh. And
he met the divine law of the Father and obeyed it, and he
went to the cross and bore our sins in his body and died that
we might live. He was buried and rose again,
and even now he's at the right hand of God, and he invites the
guilty to come for cleansing. He invites the filthy to come
for grace. He invites the man, the woman,
the boy, or the girl who cannot help himself, who cannot save
himself, who cannot keep himself, to come to Christ and be made
whole. And he gives you before God a spotless holiness and a
spotless righteousness. And he puts his Spirit in your
heart and causes you to love him more than you love life. You wonder how Raymond Gearheart
could leave this earth with such peace? And Carol, didn't I say
to him the other night, Raymond, do you have peace? He said, I
have peace. You wonder where that comes from?
But it doesn't come from marching down a church aisle and joining
a church and being baptized and keeping the law. It comes from
a vital, living union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know where people get
the grace that Juanita has to be here this morning and worship
her Lord when her husband left here yesterday? It comes from
a living, vital union with Christ. That's where it comes from. To
love Christ more than you love life. Because He is life. He is life. Read that, look at
that next verse, 21. For me to live, for to me to
live is Christ. That's what it means to live.
Some people say this, for me to live is wealth. They want
money and money and more money and more money. For them to live
is pleasure. They want pleasure. They want
laughter and pleasure. For them to live is fame, for
them to live is family, their families first, their families
their idols. For them to live is vanity and
beauty, for them to live is excitement, for them to live is success.
Paul said, to me to live is Christ. That's what Raymond was quoting
to me. Watch your verse right now. Whether
in life or death, that I might glorify God, for to me to live
is Christ. His fellowship I cherish above
any fellowship. His glory I desire more than
any glory. His gospel I delight to hear. His church, oh, I was glad when
they said to me, let's go to the house of the Lord. Not just
to hear a man, but to meet with God. Not just to show I'm religious,
but to meet with God. Let's go to the house of God.
I was glad when they said to me, let's go to the house of
God. David said one time, Lord, I looked at the wealthy and the
rich and I saw they weren't oppressed and they didn't suffer. I looked
at the wealthy and the rich and the worldly and I saw that they
didn't have affliction and distress and it bothered me until I went
to the house of the Lord. And there the Lord showed me
not their present condition, but He showed me their eternal
ruin, and I was comforted. I'll tell you, in the house of
the Lord, where Christ is preached and where Christ is worshiped
and where we sing hymns to praise His name, people get comfort,
real comfort. For me to live as Christ, His
people are my people. His will is my will. This is
my life. This is what Raymond was saying
to me the other night, God, whatever you do with me in life or in
death, do it for your glory. Because that's why I'm living,
for your glory. To me to live is Christ. And
then the last part, listen to it, and to die is gain. Preaching, That's something that I can't
quite understand. Would you explain what you mean
by, to die is gain? Will you listen to me a minute? Our friend whom God has called
away has lost all of his earthly possessions. He said goodbye
to them. Job said, naked, I came into
the world naked, I shall depart. But what he has gained is eternal
riches that will never be taken away. How can it be lost to lose what
I can't keep in order to gain what I can never lose? Think
about it a minute. That's why it's gain to die.
I gain riches and glory which I shall never lose. He lost his
vision of earthly corruption. Brother Fitzgerald prayed a moment
ago about the beauty of the Lord's day, and it is beautiful. I looked
at the sun this morning as it came through the fog, and the
fog was moving away at the presence of the sun. And then I saw the
leaves on the grass. The grass was still green, the
leaves, and everything was quiet and the bird was singing. I thought,
God's world is so beautiful. But you know, even in its limited
beauty, sin has stained it and marred it. And then I turn this
way, and I see all the corruption and evil of this world. And I
look in my own heart, and I see the evil there, and I'm disturbed
about it. And he has lost this vision of
earthly corruption to look on Christ. To look on Christ. You talk about beauty. This will
look like a hog pen compared to heaven. The finest thing that
we've got on this earth—Charlie Payne said to me the other night
when Raymond left here about 4.30 the next morning down at
Juanita's house, he said, Henry, I can't get over it. A minute
ago I was talking to Raymond, and he's looking at me, and a
few minutes later he was looking at Christ. I just can't believe
that a man was looking at me, and now he's looking at Christ.
Oh, to die is gain. He lost a frail body to gain
an incorruptible body. He lost a weak body to gain a
body like Christ. He lost a limited faith. He had
faith, but it wasn't much, and yours isn't either. And when
I leave here, I'm going to walk in perfect sight. I don't need
faith. Raymond doesn't need faith anymore. He's got the Lord. He
lost a weak knowledge. He was trying to study, and he
was learning, but we don't know much. We can learn everything
these minds can contain. We don't know much. But now he
knows as he has been known. Talk about gain. He lost a temporary
place on this earth, and we're just pilgrims, sojourners, to
gain an eternal home and glory. That's why it's gain to die.
He lost sin and suffering and pain and tears to gain perfect
holiness. Never to sin again, either in
thought, word, or deed. Perfect health and perfect heaven. You see why the die is gained?
No matter how comfortable I am here, no matter how much so-called
beauty I see here, one moment in heaven, I'll forget all of
this corruption. Not going to forget those I knew.
Now don't you think that for a moment. He's waiting for us. And it won't be that long, we'll
all be there. But I want you to know this, I pray that God
will give me the grace to die in the Lord like this young man
did. And that I might witness a witness
and a testimony for the glory of Jesus Christ like this young
man did. But I want you to know, he's
not received up in glory because of his testimony, his witness,
or his faithfulness. He's received that because Christ
died for his sins. And he's not up there telling
the Lord, Lord, I preached in your name, and I died in the
faith, and I kept this, and I witnessed. No, sir, he said, unto him who
loved me and washed me from my sins in his own blood, unto him
be glory both now and forever. I'm just a sinner saved by grace. And we're not looking for crowns
only to lay at his feet, because he's worthy of it all. I want
to lead you in a song, Brother Don, I'll lead this one, 516.
This is an old-time song, and it means more at times like this,
516. And I want you, I know it'll be hard to sing, because your
hearts have been broken, and I know that, but these times
are good for us. We learn more looking through
the telescope of tears than we ever learn looking at sunshine.
We learn more in the valley than we ever learn on the mountain.
We learn more when our hearts are broken and we're low in the
dust and at the feet of Christ than we learn anywhere else.