Bible, Death, the Child of God: Two Facts

Driving home: Life is a narrow veil between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry.

Martin quotes a pathetic, nihilistic statement about life being a 'narrow veil between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities' to illustrate the despair of those ignorant of or rejecting biblical truth about death.

If we are ignorant of or willfully reject the witness of the Bible with respect to the cause and to the issue and to the conquest of death, we will find ourselves very much in sympathy with these pathetic words. I don't know where I read them or where I heard them, but I wrote them down on a little stick-em note and put them on my desk months ago, believing that at some point there would be a judicious opportunity to quote them in the course of preaching. Here are the words of someone who was either pathetically ignorant of or willfully rejected what the Bible says concerning

1:59 - 2:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If we are to think biblically concerning death, and in particular death and the child of God, we must have clearly in place in our understanding this foundational fact of biblical revelation concerning what I have called…

He contrasts humans with angels (spirit beings without bodies) and animals (physical beings without souls/spirits in the human sense) to highlight the unique dual nature of human beings.

nature of human beings. We are in that sense utterly distinct from all of the other of God's creatures. Angels are spirit beings, but they have no corporeal physical essence. They can assume in the sovereignty of God and by the mighty power of God, temporary physical constitutions apparently, but in essence they are called ministering spirits. They are essentially spirit beings.

9:50 - 10:22 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Nowhere in the Bible is death treated as something natural, as something that can easily be domesticated and treated merely as a part of life. No encouragement is given us in the Bible to minimize the terror and fearfuln…

Martin quotes from Venema's 'The Promise of the Future' to underscore the biblical teaching that death is unnatural, a result of sin, and not merely a 'natural part of life'.

This radical separation of the soul and the body is unnatural and is the result of sin. Death is unnatural and is the result of sin. Let me quote from a very helpful book on the future and on last things. It's called The Promise of the Future by a man named Venema.

14:14 - 14:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Remind yourself, 'Absent from the body, present with the Lord,' especially when facing the fear of dying.

He recounts comforting Dusty after his grandmother Mabel Philbrook's death by repeatedly stating 'absent from the body, present with the Lord,' illustrating the simple, powerful truth for believers facing death.

But I know wherever He is in His glorified heavenly existence and place the moment the soul is gone from the body it's at home with Him. Absent from the body. present with the Lord. I remember how this text came home with such power a few years ago when the Lord took our dear sister Mabel Philbrook.

40:57 - 41:27 Read in full sermon

The point: Remind yourself, 'Absent from the body, present with the Lord,' especially when facing the fear of dying.

Martin uses the analogy of a dentist visit (familiar, though scary) versus lying on one's deathbed (unprecedented, terrifying) to emphasize the unique fear of the experience of dying, even for believers.

You've been to the dentist, felt the needle go in your jaw, felt the trauma of a tooth pulled. You may be scared going the next time, but at least you've been there before.

42:18 - 42:28 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He speculates, based on Luke 16:22, that angels may carry the departing spirits of believers into Christ's presence, performing a great service to the heirs of salvation.

He references the parable of Lazarus being 'carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom' as a potential clue for how spirits are transported to Christ's presence after death.

Jesus, in a parable again that makes no sense if we are not comprised of the two entities, bodies that can die and go into graves and spirits that can go to Abraham's bosom or into Hades. Luke 16, 19. Now there was a certain rich man, and was clothed in purple and fine linen, and a certain beggar named Lazarus laid at his gate full of sores. And it came to pass, verse 22, that when the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

48:23 - 49:01 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Thirdly, the believer is immediately brought into the company of all blood-washed saints, reflecting God's corporate design for salvation and the fellowship already experienced…

Martin describes his emotional reunion with Keith Underhill, a missionary brother he hadn't seen in 20 years, to illustrate how much more exquisite and pure the love and fellowship will be among saints in glory.

if they reflect on us poor earthlings what they're saying about us every human affection that at least in some measure partakes of grace here on earth surely will be augmented when we are brought into the total moral conformity to Christ in the moment of our death I couldn't help but think of this when this past Friday I had the privilege of seeing a dear brother that I haven't seen for about 20 years. Back when we used to worship in the Cracker Box in Essex Fells, he came up one summer to work while he was in seminary and to get him a wife. And he got him a wife from one of our young ladies

56:40 - 57:27 Read in full sermon