I think there are three or four
things that cause us to change our attitude
towards death. I don't expect everyone here
tonight to enter in as completely into this message as perhaps
some of you shall. nor to appreciate it as much. I have changed my attitude toward
death considerably, and I think there are several things that
have contributed to that. Number one, and I think foremost,
is a growth in the knowledge of Christ and in faith in Christ. When we are babes in Christ,
when we are in our early years of faith. Perhaps death is not
coveted or sought because our faith is small. It is not strong. But as the years go by and Christ
becomes more precious, more real, more certain, more assurance,
then perhaps we want to go and be with him a little more than
we did in the early years. And then I think another thing
contributes to our change of attitude toward death, and that
is age. We begin to get a little bit
tired of this world, and tired of the conflicts and the battles,
and we come to the place where we're willing to be done with
it, to be parted from it, And to go where there is no conflict,
as John said as he sat on the Isle of Patmos surrounded by
the sea, I'm going where there is no more sea. He was tired
of looking at it. He was weary of being surrounded
by it and imprisoned by it. And so he said in heaven there
is no more sea. And we get weary of the conflicts
of life and the battles of life and the requirements and responsibilities
and we're perfectly willing to turn it over to somebody else.
And then I think, thirdly, that which changes our attitude toward
death is for someone who is very, very close to us to precede us
in death. A close friend or a close loved
one, a son or daughter, mother or father, husband or wife, someone
who, not because of relationship particularly, with someone with
whom we shared a great deal of joy and fellowship, if they go
first, then we're quite anxious to see them again. We're quite
anxious to join them. Now this text in Psalms 116,
so I say I don't expect everyone to appreciate the message tonight
quite as full as I think that I will. And I think that some
of the rest of you will for those three reasons. Perhaps you're
young in Christ. Perhaps you're young in body. Perhaps you, everything you have
is here. Perhaps there's nothing there
that you have treasured here. Lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven where moth and rust does not corrupt and thieves
do not break through and steal. But I'll guarantee you, when
someone whom you love very dearly has gone to be with the Lord,
heaven gets a little sweeter and a little nearer. Here in
Psalms 116, verse 15, David said, precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. Now this text was born of great
trouble. It was born of great sorrow.
David didn't just reach out and pluck this text out of the air
and expound it as a doctrine of his religion. If we're not
very careful in our systematic theology and in our studies of
religious doctrine, we will argue what we have not experienced.
We will contend for something that has not been made real to
us. We only believe what we experience. We only believe what we experience. And David didn't pluck this out
of the air and say that, I believe that the death of the child of
God is precious to the Lord. It was born of experience. It was born of faith. For preceding
this verse, he had talked in this psalm about death. He had
come to the very brink of death. He had come to the very edge
of death. He talked about the grave, how
that God had delivered him from death and from the grave. He
talked about being brought low and God miraculously delivering
him. He talked about his eyes weeping. He talked about falling. He talked
about being afflicted. So you see, this statement was
born out of sorrow. It was born out of trouble. It
was born of experience. It sprang from faith. David had
come to the conclusion that his life was too precious, and his
death was too important in the eyes of his Lord to be lightly
considered. He had come to believe that his
life as a redeemed son of the living God was too precious,
and his death was too important in the sight of God to be lightly
considered. Now there are those who lightly
consider the death of a human being. To the commanding officer,
the death of a soldier is a vacant position. It is one less number. It is one less gun. It is a man
to replace. To the attending physician, the
death of a patient is a case lost. It is a disease perhaps
unknown. It is a cure that is being sought. But he's gone now and I shall
call at the next room. To the hospital there is now
a bed that is vacant and accessible to another patient. To the coroner
there is an examination and a cause for death is sought and a certificate
to be filled out. To the newspaper, according to
the importance of the individual, it is a story or it is an obituary. To the reader, a neighbor has
departed, a house is now for sale, a life is finished, and
a will is to be read. To the census taker, there's
one less citizen until a baby is born to take his place. But
when a person dies who knows Christ, to the Lord who loved
him from all eternity, who chose him in his covenant of grace
and by His marvelous mercy, who gave Him life, who watched over
Him in His sins and in His rebellion, who loved Him so much that He
gave His Son to die for Him on the cross, who waited patiently
and called Him by His Holy Spirit and directed His life for His
divine glory and the accomplishment of His design and purpose That
individual is a child whom God has seen fit to call home. It
may be a number to the census taker, a story to the newspaper
man. It may be a case lost to the
physician, but to the Heavenly Father, it's a son who has come
home. Precious in the sight of the
Lord. Unknown to the community. Unmissed,
actually, to many. but precious to the Lord. Now, this text, I think, corrects
another estimate of death. We love our friends, we love
our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, and they're precious
to us. Their lives are precious to us. Not their deaths. Their lives
are precious to us. And we're prone to want to keep
them on this earth just as long as we possibly can. We hate to
give them up. Rather than giving them up, we'll
keep them. While the Lord Jesus Christ is
praying, Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me
be with me where I am, we're praying, Father, leave them here
with us. While the Master is praying,
Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me
where I am. We're praying, Father, don't
take them. Don't take them. Don't take them. Leave them here. Let us keep
them a little longer. We enjoy them. Their deaths are
not precious to us. Their lives are precious to us.
But the Scripture says their deaths are precious to the Lord.
When a believer dies, we grieve, Christ rejoices. When a believer
dies, we weep. Grievous is their death to us,
precious is their death to Him. While we mourn and weep here
below, in heaven the joy bells are ringing. While we mourn and
weep here upon this earth, angels rejoice in the presence of the
living God. A trophy of His grace has come
home. Now friends, as God loved us
with an everlasting love, as God chose us by His power and
purpose in His Son from all eternity, as God redeemed us with the unspeakable
gift of His Son, As God loves us so much that He numbers the
hairs of our heads, as God never leaves us nor forsakes us, so
God Almighty determines our days. And the Scripture says the number
of our months are with Him, the day of our departure is with
Him, and that day and that death is most precious to Him. It is an object, it is a goal,
It is a conclusion from which all of this started back yonder
in eternity. God determined to make us like
Christ. And when the day of our death
comes, He makes us like Christ. He perfectly conforms us to the
image of His Son. And precious is that day in the
sight of the Lord. Now, this text talks about a
particular kind of death. I want you to notice this. It
doesn't say precious in the sight of the Lord. is the death of
a human being. It doesn't say precious in the
sight of the Lord is every death, but it says precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of his saints, his children. These are believers. Every believer
is a saint. I think we've made a mistake
in calling the books of the Bible, the gospel according to St. Matthew
and St. Mark and St. Luke and St. John
and the revelation of St. John the Divine. I believe that's
a mistake because it leads some who are not well-read in the
Scripture to believe that some are saints and some aren't, who
are believers. But Scripture tells us that every
believer is a priest, every believer is a saint, every believer is
a child of God. Whether it be a writer of the
Scripture, or an apostle, or a minister, an evangelist, a
missionary, or a person in the church who holds no particular
office or particular position of importance, every believer
is a saint. So we're saying here, precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of a believer. of a child
of God, of a born-again person. Now, the death of a believer
is precious. There's nothing precious about
the death of an unbeliever. It's a horrible experience. A
man who dies without faith in Christ is a man who leaves all
that he loves, never to gain it again. is a man who must face
his sins and judgment before holy God without any mediator,
without any hope, without any Savior, is a man that will hear
God say, Depart from me, I never knew you, bind him hand and foot,
and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. There can be nothing precious
about the death of an unbeliever. It's a horrible experience. It's
a terrible experience. It's the worst possible thing
that could happen to a man on this earth, is to die without
Christ. Christ said to die in your, if
you die in your sins, you cannot come where I am. If I were an
unbeliever, I would fear death more than anything in the world,
because death is final. As death grips you, judgment
will find you, and eternity will hold you. If you're without Christ,
you're without hope, you're without God, you're without heaven. But
the death of a believer is precious. Now that's—there's several reasons
for that. First of all, death does not
come to a believer as a penalty for sin. Death does not come to the believer
as a penalty for sin. To the unbeliever, death is further
penalty. Death is further judgment. Death
is further condemnation. Death is a result of evil and
sin. But in the life of a believer,
death does not come as a penalty for sin. Don't you ever believe
that. Don't you ever believe that God killed a man because
of his sins, who is a believer. It's not so. Death is not a penalty
for sin for the believer, for our sins were punished in Christ,
all of them. All of our sins were punished
in Christ. The wrath of God has ceased to
be where we are concerned. We're not under the wrath of
God, we're under the love of God, we're under the mercy of
God, we're under the grace of God. If I'm killed tonight or
dropped dead of a heart attack tonight, it is not the result
of sin. It is not a penalty for sin.
Death for the believer is not a penalty, it's a privilege. Death for the believer is not
a penalty for sin, it's a means of going home. Death for the
believer is not a penalty for sin, it's a means of going to
be with God. The Scripture tells us that the
sting of death is sin. For the believer, the sting has
been removed. It's been taken out. Christ has
borne it. Turn to Philippians chapter one.
I want you to listen to the way that the Apostle Paul faced death. He didn't look upon it as a penalty
for sin. He looked upon it as a privilege,
an opportunity. He didn't look upon it as the
wrath of God upon him. He looked upon it as the mercy
of God poured him. In Philippians 1.21, he says,
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Not a penalty
for sin. It's a gain. Christ has borne
our penalty. Christ has paid our debt. Christ
has satisfied God's wrath. God's wrath has been removed.
God loves us. For me to live is Christ, to
die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this
is the fruit of my labor. Yet what I shall choose I know
not. I am in a strait, betwixt two."
I'm torn between two things, Paul said, the two things that
are dividing my attention. What are they, Paul? Well, I
have a desire to depart. I have a desire to die. That's
what he's saying. I have a desire to die." Paul
didn't look upon death as being a horrible experience, a terrible
experience, a fearful experience, an experience to avoid. He said,
I have a desire to die and to be with Christ. That's the only
way you're going to be with Christ. In order to be with Christ, you've
got to die. So Paul said, it's a privilege
to die. It's not a penalty, it's a privilege.
A man, if a man lies down and dies tonight with faith in Christ,
God bless him. Why, he's received one of the
greatest privileges in the world, to leave this earth and go to
be with his Lord. It's a privilege. I have a desire
to die and to be with Christ, which is far better. But now,
verse twenty-five, he says, nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more
needful for you. The apostle Paul was a pastor.
I don't mean he had a regular church, but he was the pastor
to many people. He said, you need me. You need
me to preach to you. You need me to teach you. You
need me to strengthen you. You need me to pray for you.
That's why you need me. Perhaps there's a father here
tonight, has three or four young children. Your children ought
not so have a hold upon you that you fear to go and be with Christ,
you ought to be able to say with the Apostle Paul, yes, I have
a desire to depart and be with Christ, but it's more needful
for my children that I remain here. They need a father. A friend
of mine made a study of 10,000 young men in the penitentiary
in a certain state, the state of Illinois, I believe it was.
10,000 young men in the Reformatory, 9,000 of them didn't have fathers. You can decide what you want
to about that, but out of 10,000 young men in the Reformatory,
9,000 of them were from divorced homes, broken homes, didn't have
fathers. And there may be a father here
who says, well, I don't want to die, my children need me.
Can't both be true? Can't you desire to depart and
be with Christ and also recognize your children need you, your
wife needs you? Perhaps someone else needs you
very much. Perhaps you're vital to an individual.
So you can say with the apostle Paul, it's not a penalty to die.
That's not the worst thing that can happen to me. Actually, if
you know Christ, that's the best thing that can happen to you.
To depart and be with Christ, which is, Paul said, which is
far better. which is far better, better than
anything the world has to offer. To depart and go to be with the
Lord is better than anything this world has to offer. Nevertheless,
to abide in the flesh, for me to stay here, is more needful
for you. So death is not a penalty, it's
a privilege. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Now I want you to listen to this
carefully. He says in 1 Corinthians 3, verse
21, Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours,
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, they're all yours, or
the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things
to come, all are yours. Your gifts, your treasures, life.
You say, life is a great gift, death is a gift, death is a treasure,
death is something I should possess, something I should own. The day may come when you will
beg for it. The day may come when it will
be the greatest treasure you could possibly possess. Simeon looked at the child Jesus
and then lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Now, Father, let me
die. Please let me die. Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
Now let thy servant depart in peace, or die in peace. All things are yours, whether
it's the world or life or death, it's yours. It's no penalty,
it's no catastrophe, it's no horrible experience. It's a glorious
homecoming. God has ordained it for your
glory and for your good, and to bring you all the things that
he's prepared for you. Now, the second thing about death,
it's not ceasing to be. This has plagued men, I think,
for generations, the uncertainty of death. But let me point this
out. If death is annihilation, how
could it be precious? If death is total annihilation,
if I die and then I cease to be, how in the name of common
sense can it be precious in the sight of the Lord? It wouldn't
be precious to Christ for his people to cease to exist, to
be annihilated, to be no more. To be absent from the body, the
apostle Paul said, is to be present with the Lord. So when the king
sent for Esther, she bathed herself with spices that she might be
fit for the embraces of the king. So you and I go through death,
and we go through the grave to lay aside the corruption of the
earth. that we might be fit for the
company of the king. I've got to go through the grave
that I might be fit company for the king of kings. As Esther
went through the bath of spices to make her fit for the embraces
of the king, even so I've got to go through the grave to lay
aside the corruption of the flesh that I might be fit for the presence
of the king of glory. Corruption, earth, and worms,
shall but refine this flesh till my triumphant soul comes to put
it on afresh. As the body must die before it
can rise, it must be sown like the seed before it can come forth."
Turn to I Corinthians 15. I want you to read something
here about death and about the grave. We take our loved ones
out to the graveyard, and we take their bodies and lower them
in the tomb, in the casket, put them under the ground, and then
cover the casket with saw, and it goes back to the dust from
whence it came, and it's a pretty tough experience. It's a pretty
tough experience, unless you have some knowledge of Christ
and of His purpose and of His will and His glory in this matter.
In verse 42 of 1 Corinthians 15, it says, So also is the resurrection
of the dead. It is sown in corruption. That
is, it's buried in corruption. It's buried in corruption. It
is raised in incorruption. That's a necessity. That's a
necessity. That burial, that rotting, that
decaying is a necessity. Except a corn of wheat fall into
the ground and die, it cannot come forth. It abideth alone. In order for this body to take
on The beauty of heaven and the glory of heaven, it's got to
be put in the soil. It's got to be buried. It's got
to die. It's sown in dishonor, and it'll
be raised in glory. Verse 43, it is sown or buried
in weakness. It'll be raised in power. It
is buried a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. It is raised a spiritual body.
Now, when we look upon the dead body of someone who's very close
to us, they have notified us that our loved one has died.
And we go down to the funeral home, and it's a pretty, pretty
heartbreaking experience. And you go down, and there is
the body of that loved one in the casket. And the eyes are
closed in death, and there's a paleness. There's a deadness
is what it is. The eyes do not see, and the
ear does not hear, and the hands have grown stiff, and the forehead
and the skin has a cold clay feeling, feel to it. They have
gone, they've departed, and we sit there or stand there with
that body and look upon that dead body, and it seems to us
to be a catastrophe. But let's look at it another
way. There was a little girl who came running in one day to
her mother, and she said, Mother, I've found a wonderful treasure. And the mother said, What is
it, my child? She said, I've found a bird nest. Did you leave
it alone? Oh yes, I left it alone. It's
out here on one of the lower branches of the tree. What was
in the bird nest, my dear? There were four little blue eggs. They're so pretty, mother, four
little blue eggs. They're my treasure. I want to
keep them. Don't touch them, my dear. Just
do not touch them. I don't mind you going and looking
at them, but don't touch them. Leave them in the nest." Well,
each day during the day, sometimes she would run out and look at
the four little blue eggs in the nest, perfectly shaped and
formed, just lying there in the nest. One day she came running
into her mother crying. She said, Mother, weep with me. Something terrible has happened.
I've lost my treasure. And the mother said, What is
it, my child? She said, All that is left of
my four beautiful blue eggs are just some broken pieces in the
bottom of the desk. And the mother said, My child,
you've not lost your treasure. The little birds that were inside
those eggs have broken free from the shells, and they're now flying
away in the trees, and they're singing, and they're happy, and
they're away from those eggs' shells that imprisoned them and
surrounded them. Now when you go down to look
at your loved one in the casket, and you see nothing but the broken
shell, Something that remains of a body, that imprisoned a
soul, that held and contained a soul. Don't look at the broken
shells and say, my treasure is destroyed. Look at the broken
shells and say, my bird has flown. And the bird is much happier
now. He was not happy in the shell
or in the nest. He's happy now. He has flown
to the presence of the Redeemer. The broken body goes back to
the dust from which it came as the shells that imprisoned the
eggs, the little birds, as the shells go back to dust and back
to nothing. Even so, these bodies, they've
got to be broken, they've got to decay, they've got to fall
apart, they've got to be broken to release the spirit. Goes back
to God who gave it. So precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. Doesn't matter who the saint
is. The death of the minister is no more precious than the
death of one of these little boys. Not in the sight of the
Lord. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of all his saints. It doesn't matter when
death comes, whether it comes in early years or middle life
or old age. Still precious in the sight of
the Lord. Doesn't matter where we die, whether we die at home
or in the hospital by ourselves. That was one of the things that
seemed to bother my sister when Brother Barnard died. She thought
an awful lot of him. I was here in Ashland when Barnard
died down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the General Hospital. They
were holding a meeting out in the country near Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and he had a heart attack, and they took him to
the hospital, the General Hospital, just fifteen minutes from my
sister's home. And so they left him there that
night, just went away. That I can't explain, but they
did anyway. And the next morning when Mrs.
Barnard called me about six or seven o'clock, I immediately
called my sister and I said, Brother Barnard is awfully sick
with a heart attack in the hospital just a few minutes from you.
I wonder if you'd run over there and and visit with him and find
out how serious it is and call me and I'll fly down." Well,
two or three hours passed and she called me back just weeping.
And she said, Henry, she said, he's dead. He was dead when I
got to the hospital and there was nobody there. She said he
died by himself. There wasn't a soul in that hospital
that knew him. Nobody was there. His wife wasn't
there. She didn't have time to get there. His daughter was not
there. There wasn't a friend there.
There wasn't a minister there. There wasn't a believer there.
There was nobody there. And they gave me his clothes. They gave
me his belongings. I was a stranger. And he died
alone. He didn't die alone. The believer
can't die alone. Our Lord said, I'll never leave
you. I'll never forsake you, whether you're at home, whether
you're in the hospital, whether you're out on the ocean. Whether
your body is destroyed, whether it's burned completely up, or
whether it's buried on the ocean floor, God is there. The one who decreed your life
and gave it to you, the one who saved your life and loved you,
as David said, though my mother and father forsake me, my Lord
will take me up. He loves you, and he'll never
leave you. Why is the death of the saint
of God precious to God? Well, first of all, because these
persons were and always will be precious to Him. He calls
them His jewels. He calls them His brethren. He
calls them His bride. He calls them His elect. And
they're precious in death more than any other time. You know
why? Because when we die, we rely more on His grace than ever
before. He said, When you pass through
the river, I'll be with you. David said, Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil,
thou art with me. At no time are we so completely
separated from men to cling to God alone than the day that we
die. And the death of the saint is
precious to the Lord because the precious blood of Christ
is glorified when one of his people is taken from this earth
to glory. Men may talk about the church
and the ordinances and the crown while they're living, but when
they come to die, they talk about the blood. No one talks on his deathbed
about the beauties of the utterances of Shakespeare No one talks on
his deathbed about the wise sayings of Bacon. We prattle about it
while we're here on this earth in full strength of youth. But
when a man comes to die, he doesn't talk about the thoughts of Socrates,
he talks about the blood of Jesus. When Richard Baxter was on his
bed dying, the last words he ever said was in answer to a
question. Someone standing by the bed said,
My dear Mr. Baxter, how are you? And he was
silent for a few moments, and then he replied, I'm almost well. I'm almost well. And with that,
Richard Baxter died and went to be with the Lord. How are
you? I'm almost well. Almost. Our Father, we pray that Thou
would give us faith and confidence in Christ both in life and in
death. Reveal unto us the preciousness
of death, of departure from this world, of that glorious homecoming
when we shall see Thee face to face and be changed into the
likeness of our glorious Redeemer. Grant, O Lord, that the things
that bind us to this earth shall become with the passing of days
a little less important, a little less precious to us, and our
relationship with Thee will become more real. Comfort those who
have said good-bye to loved ones. Comfort them, O Lord, with Thy
Word and the preciousness of death in Thy sight, and the glorious
reunion that we shall have with all who have gone before. we
shall gather at the river, the river that flows from the throne
of our God. And we shall know no more tears,
and no more sorrow, no more heartache, no more pain, no more sickness,
no more death. For then all of these former
things shall have passed away, and our God shall dwell with
us, and we shall dwell with thee." Take the fear out of death, the
dread out of the grave and the tomb, for there is no penalty
there but a glorious privilege to go and be with Christ. We
ask all of these things in the name of our Lord and for His
sake. Amen.