Are You Prepared to Die?

Introduction: The Sobering Reality of Death from a Funeral

0:04 Those of you who were present at our prayer meeting on Wednesday will know that yesterday morning found me discharging a very solemn responsibility. That responsibility was leading the funeral service and the subsequent interment of a former friend and once regular attender here at our assembly. The man moved to Tennessee several years ago, got up this past Tuesday morning to go out and work in his yard, though an 82-year-old man knows signs that death was anywhere near at his doorstep, and yet by Tuesday night he lay dead in a funeral parlor. And as I was privileged to take that funeral yesterday and stood...

1:03 I stood to minister the word of God to those who gathered in that funeral home with an open coffin and the earthly remains of this man some ten feet from me as I stood to speak. And as I stood by his coffin at the graveside just a few minutes after the conclusion of that service and realized that within minutes after leaving that gravesite, that coffin, where those earthly remains would be let down into the cold earth, I believe I had a sense of the answer to my prayers as to what I should preach upon tonight. As we look back over the past months and much of the ministry when not in the regular course of preaching through First Peter has been focused upon trying to minister to distressed and at times confused and distraught sheep, I realized in anticipating this Lord's Day evening and the privilege and responsibility that would be mine to preach that it had been some time since there had been a ministry of the word of God which focused exclusively upon the great central issues of what it is to be right with God.

2:24 Those central fundamental issues of death and of judgment and of the necessity of repentance and of faith. And a funeral. And a funeral. As a very rude way of rattling one's cage and reminding us that at the end of the day this is the end of all the living and barring the coming of the Lord Jesus someday I will lie lifeless in a coffin while someone preaches at my funeral and someone will stand at the head of my coffin and say we commit the earthly remains of our brother to the ground.

3:08 to the ground in the hope of the resurrection. And dear children and young people, barring the coming of the Lord Jesus, somebody will stand by your coffin and preach. And someone will stand by your coffin when you are also laid in the cold, damp earth. And realizing that I may never preach again, though I have no premonitions, but neither do I have any assurance from heaven, I'm constrained this night to preach to you with the shadow of yesterday's events, very much cast over my own spirit. And I want to do so under this topical sermon head of three facts and one important question. Three facts and one important question. And I plead with each one of you that if you've ever made an effort to listen with both ears, not only externally, but the internal ears of the soul, and if you have any reason to believe that I am something other than a professional cleric, I don't do what I'm doing because it's the only thing I can do to make a living.

Fact 1: Life is Brief and Uncertain

4:35 If you have any sense, dear children, young people, and adults, that I'm not playing games when I'm in this pulpit or doing my professional clerical thing, then I plead with you to give me an earnest and a fair hearing as I seek to speak into the depths of your own soul as we consider these three facts and the one important question that grows out of them. Fact number one. Life is brief. Life is brief.

5:08 Life is brief and uncertain.

5:10 Life is brief and uncertain. Think first of all of those scriptures that underscore the reality of the brevity of life. In Psalm 90, the great theme of which is Moses, the man of God, contrasting God's eternity with man's transitory and temporal existence upon the earth. Moses writes in Psalm 90, in verse 9, For all our days are passed away in your wrath and we bring our years to an end as a sigh.

5:49 The days of our years are seventy or even by reason of strength eighty years. Yet is there pride but labor and sorrow. Now here's the phrase. It is soon gone and we fly away.

6:08 Here Moses says, that if we even live out our seventy or our bonus years that make us eighty. Yet this life is soon gone. Eighty years soon gone and we fly away. Or take the testimony of the patriarch Job.

6:34 And it's particularly significant because these words come in a setting in which Job is greatly disappointed. He is distressed with physical discomfort, emotional trauma. And he says in chapter 7 of the book of Job, I am full of tossings to and fro till the dawning of the day. Verse 4, My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust.

6:59 My skin closes up and breaks out afresh. Here is a man in the midst of tremendous physical trauma. A time when he wonders, when will a night pass? He's full of tossing and turning.

7:14 Yet in the midst of a situation in which time seems to pass so slowly. And some of us have known that kind of intense physical trauma. When we have lain upon a bed of pain and looked at a clock in the middle of the night and sought thought for sure, we must have misread the clock when it showed that only five or ten minutes had passed and we thought surely an hour and five or ten minutes had passed. Yet in that moment, in that setting, listen to what Job says in verse 6.

7:45 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. Swifter than that block of wood that goes through the various strands on the weaver's loom. That shuttle that is thrown back and forth in the process of weaving. He says, My days, in spite of the trauma of pain and the tossing to and fro throughout the nights, he says, My days, My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.

8:15 Look at verse 7. Oh, remember that my life is a breath. Think of it. How many breaths have you breathed sitting here tonight?

8:27 You inhale.

8:29 You exhale. Job says, That's my life. It's one inhalation followed by an exhalation. My life, he says, is a breath.

8:44 It's a breath. The brevity of life. Moses, the man of God, highlighted it. Job underscores it.

8:54 Listen to the old man, Jacob, in Genesis 47 in verse 9. He is 130 years old. And yet, looking back upon that lengthy life, notice how he views it from the perspective of the terminal point of that life. Genesis chapter 4, 47 and verse 9.

9:17 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years. But now notice how he describes them. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life. And they have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

9:42 He lived to be a hundred and thirty, yet compared, with the earlier patriots, he said, I've not attained to their length of days, but my 130 have been few. He came to the painful awareness of the brevity of life and how clearly this is underscored by James in James chapter 4 and in verse 14b, writing to people who are careless and presumptuous about the future. James says in chapter 4 in verse 14, whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? Now notice the imagery. What is your life? You are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

10:39 You are a vapor. You know what a vapor is, don't you, kids? Wintery morning, dad starts up the car and out the exhaust pipe comes that that you might call steam. It's that visible vapor and it looks so thick on a real cold morning you think you could go out and grab a hunk of it. By the time you got out of the house to go out and grab it, it's gone. It appears for a little time and then it is gone. Or think of the contrail of a jet passing high above us in stable upper air and sometimes those contrails are as strong as the wind. It's great and seem to be as dense as something solid. And you look up and you see that vapor and you get involved in what you're doing. You look back in a few minutes and that solid line has been broken up. Look up in a few more minutes and it's utterly gone. God says that's your life. That's my life. It is a vapor that appears for a little time and seems

11:38 to be so substantial and permanent. And yet it is for the vapor. It appears for a little time and then it's gone. Life is brief but also uncertain. Life is not only brief but it is uncertain. Proverbs 27 in verse 1. Do not boast yourself of tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth. Now would you argue with that? We can say I think I know what day may bring forth. I think I know what day may bring forth. I think I know what tomorrow will bring. And we listen to the weather prognosticators and they give us their five day forecast. And we have a reasonable expectation given all of the modern

12:28 technology that can track the direction and speed of the jet stream and cloud formations and satellites pouring in information. And we have some reasonable idea of what the weather will be. We have reasonable expectations of the structure of the weather. We have some sense of the temperature of our lives and that's right and proper. But the text says you do not know what a day may bring forth. And you don't know. There is not a one of you so foolish as to mark yourself a public fool who would dare to stand tonight and say I can guarantee you what the next 24 hours will hold for me. You know better than to do that. You've got enough sense not to mark yourself as a public fool.

13:16 You and I do not know what a day may bring forth. This is not a Bible scare tactic. This is a statement of a simple plain observable fact of life. Do not boast of tomorrow for you and I do not know what a day may bring forth. You see emergency rooms don't keep specific hours. They are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Why? Well, if you went to Chilton Hospital or you went to any other local hospital and did a little interview of all the people in the emergency room and said, how many of you expected to be in here? They'd look at you like you were crazy. They said, don't you see the sign?

14:00 This is the emergency room. This is not pre-scheduled same-day surgery. This is not admissions to three or four-day surgical procedures. This is the emergency room. Do you think I knew this morning? that some drunk was going to hit me in the car and I'd come in here with my neck out of whack? Do you think my wife knew she was going to break her toe in the middle of the night two weeks ago simply stepping out of bed? She would have been one of those you could have interviewed at children's emergency room two weeks ago today at 8 o'clock in the morning.

14:37 No, it's an emergency room. Why? We do not know what a day may bring forth. And James underscores life's uncertainty in that same context from which I quoted a moment ago.

14:52 In James 4.14 he says, verse 13, Listen up, you people, that say they talk as though they do know what tomorrow will hold. Today or tomorrow we'll go to this city, spend a year there, trade and get gain, whereas you know not what shall be. On the morrow, not only is life brief like a vapor, James says it is uncertain.

15:25 Most people don't anticipate the aneurysm that in a moment of time takes them from active, intelligent, vigorous life down to death or to where they lie in a hospital bed like a vegetable. They don't anticipate that fall that may wrap...

15:44 that may dramatically alter the whole pattern of their life for years to come.

15:50 The people that in recent days have had all of their life's possessions taken away in a moment of time with the fierceness of a tornado that's come as it were out of nowhere and in minutes has left an area in devastation. The lightning bolt that's left the family in Long Island homeless as it struck in such a way that it ignited the home yesterday afternoon. These are not preachers' scare tactics, this is reality. Life is not only brief, it is uncertain.

16:26 That person that this afternoon will lie choking in a restaurant on a piece of a $20 steak didn't anticipate the piece of crystal getting caught in the throat. Life is brief and life is uncertain. That's a fact. A simple, plain, straightforward, unadorned, non-scare tactic fact.

16:51 Would you want to debate with that fact and still maintain any reputation of being a rational, reasonable human being? That's fact number one. True for all of us. Life is brief.

17:07 Should we live to be 130 like Jacob, we would say, few as well as evil have been the days of the years of my life. See, he's marking out life in its daily increments. Few have been the days of the years of my life. Your life is a vapor that appears for a little time and vanishes away.

Fact 2: Death is Unavoidable and Sometimes Sudden

17:32 You know not what shall be on the morrow. Second fact. Death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden. Death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden.

17:49 Death is unavoidable. Unavoidable. Unavoidable. Romans 5.12 states the fact, Wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death passed upon all men, for that all sin, spiritual death, the judgment of God upon a race that was piggybacked on Adam, the whole world comes under the sentence of death in Adam, and the visible, undeniable, indisputable result of that is that all men die physically. The great ones of the earth, the rich and the famous, the power brokers, the little obscure unknown ones of all ages and all societies and all races

18:40 and all socio-economic standards and structures, death is the universal reality of the human race. Death is the universal reality of the human race. Death is the universal reality of the human race. As it now lies bruised and battered as a result of the fall of our first father, Hebrews 9.27, as it is appointed unto men once to die, it is appointed unto men once to die. Once to die. From the time you and I breathe our first breath in the delivery room at that hospital, only one thing can be said with absolute certainty about that little one with its piercing wail and its first lungfuls of air, he or she, barring the coming of Christ, will die. Once someone records your birthday, only one thing is certain, someone will record your death day.

19:43 You say, Pastor, here we made the effort to come out to church on a Sunday. Have we got to be told such doleful waiting? My friends, smiling won't drive death away. Wishful thinking won't vaporize death.

20:03 Death is unavoidable, utterly unavoidable for every single one of us. And how we've been reminded of that. Some of us can remember when the teenagers with their buckskin shoes and their bobby socks were screeching and sighing and fainting when old blue eyes first hit the scene during the Second World War. We are old enough to remember when Frank Sinatra was a little skinny kid out of an obscure town in New Jersey.

20:38 And all of his fame, and all of his influence, and all of his power... When God said, it's time to go, Frankie, he went.

20:48 And there's nothing he could do. All the power brokers in Hollywood couldn't give him one extra minute. He died, and Princess died with all of her money and all of her influence. When God said, your appointment has come, woman, she died.

21:08 And death is unavoidable. Sitting where you're sitting, one thing is true of you. One thing I can say and know that my prophecy will come true. Barring the coming of Christ, every one of you, from the youngest to the oldest, is going to breathe your last.

21:26 Somewhere, someplace, at some time, in some set of circumstances, someone's going to say, he's gone, she's... That's reality.

21:43 Don't stick your head in the sand and say, if I don't think about it, it'll go away. Death will not go away. By ignoring its inevitability, it is unavoidable. You and I need to look ourselves in the mirror and say to ourselves, John, Sally, Mary, Pete, Henry, Albert, what I see in that mirror is going to die.

22:14 Not only is death unavoidable, death is sometimes sudden and unexpected.

22:21 Sometimes sudden and unexpected. Many times death comes as the spring of life gradually winds down. Many times death does come that way. That's what Moses observed in Psalm 90.

22:36 The days of our years are 70. If by reason of strength they may be 80. Moses had seen a whole generation in the wilderness with the spring of life wind down and wind down in one and after another. And one time I calculated how many deaths he saw per week through that wilderness wandering.

22:58 Frightening amount of them.

23:01 The tragedy is that so often, if life ebbs out as the springs of life wind down, the faculties are so, so impaired or so occupied with the exertion simply to exist that the ability to think of important issues is almost a physical and mental and psychological impossibility.

23:26 So that even if you knew you were going to live out your 80 years, how foolish it would be to avoid the serious thoughts about death and its sequel. However, the word of God and human observation both declare that, death sometimes does come suddenly and unexpectedly. Can you think of the classic illustration of this in the scriptures? Remember what our Lord taught in Luke chapter 12?

23:57 He described this wealthy fat cat all ready to retire and live the good life somewhere down in the retirement, post-retirement sections of Florida are out. In some place around Phoenix, Arizona, one or the other retirement havens. And he had it all figured out. So you have much good laid up for many years.

24:24 Take your ease. Live the good life. Verse 19 of Luke 12. I will say to my soul, soul, you have much goods laid up for many years.

24:34 Take your ease. Eat, drink, be merry. You've worked hard. You paid your dues.

24:39 Now enjoy your golden years. But God said, but God said unto him, you fool, this night is your soul required to save. He hadn't factored in the possibility of a sudden, unexpected death. Apparently he had no pacemaker.

25:02 Apparently there was no indication his cholesterol levels were high, that he might be a sitting candidate for a stroke. He went out and worked out three, four times a week. Cardiovascular system was in good shape. He watched.

25:14 His diet kept his animal fat intake, low supplemented, necessary by eating everything to make him think he was going to have a nice long period of his golden years. And God burst his bubble in one night. Thou fool, this night death came upon him suddenly. The Bible is full of examples of this, and we see it with our own eyes in our own society, in our own generation.

25:44 Think of this. Think of this. Think of those. It says they knew not until the flood came and took them all away.

25:52 Children, young people, teenagers, young adults, and old men and women, all but eight who were saved in the ark were suddenly swept away. Think of those men who went out to apprehend the prophet. They went out one day polishing their buckles and their brass, and they're going to have some fun with the prophet of God. And fire comes out of heaven in an instant.

26:14 It consumes. Think of what's happened in our own day. Those kids that one minute are in the classroom laughing with their peers, listening to their teachers and the fire bell rings. And minutes later, they're nothing but slaughtered carcasses out on the school playground.

26:43 Death came suddenly unexpectedly. The illustrations about these are not preachers scare tactics for this is reality. This is reality. This is reality.

Fact 3: Judgment is Certain and Irreversible

26:55 This is a fact. Not only is it a fact that life is brief and uncertain, but death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden and unexpected. But then the third fact is this, that judgment is certain and irreversible. Judgment is certain and irreversible.

27:22 Judgment is certain. Again, Hebrews 9, 27, as it is appointed unto men once to die. And after this comes judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

27:44 The paradigm of a fixed and an inseparable relationship between the death of Christ and his coming in triumph for those on whose behalf he died. The inseparable relationship between the death of Christ and his coming in triumph for those on whose behalf he died. The inseparable unbreakable bond between the death of Christ and the fruition of that death is the paradigm of the inseparable relationship between death and judgment as it is appointed unto men once to die. And after this comes judgment.

28:14 So Christ was once offered and shall appear. You see, so foundational is this inseparable relationship that it becomes an indisputable paradigm. It is the paradigm. A framework on which to establish this other reality.

28:33 Judgment is certain. Jesus stated it in unmistakable terms. He who is truth incarnate, who said, I speak only the words that my father gives me. Listen to his words in John chapter five and verse 28.

28:50 Marvel not at this for the hour comes. The hour comes. The hour comes. In which all that are in the tomb will hear his voice and shall come forth.

29:04 They that have done good unto the resurrection of life. They that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment. Jesus said the hour comes. In which all that are in the tomb shall hear his voice and shall come forth.

29:21 But that truth, it grips one. One. by the open grave and realizes that though that coffin is let down into the earth and though with the passing of time what is there in that coffin may be eaten by the worms as surely as the grave diggers opened up the earth and the funeral directors placed the coffin in that hole the Son of God will speak and all that are in the tombs shall come forth including you including me all that are in the tombs judgment is certain Christ will call us from our graves to stand before him listen to his words in Matthew 25 31 here again truth incarnate is speaking Matthew chapter 25 and verse 31 but when the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the angels with him then shall he sit on the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all the nations he shall separate them one from the other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats the Son of Man shall come and he shall sit upon his throne

30:47 before him shall be gathered all the nations and they shall all be separated sheep and goats judgment is certain you have that graphic description of it in Revelation 20 verses 15 and following in which John says I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and the dead were judged out of the grave and the dead were judged out of the grave and the dead were judged out of the books and the sea gave up the dead that were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them the picture of a certain coming judgment judgment is certain it is not a fable it is not the invention of sick minds that want to oppress people with guilt trips it is the reality of our ultimate destiny to stand before the God who made us in that final day in that final day of judgment and not only is judgment certain but it is irreversible it is irreversible whatever occurs in the judgment is settled for all eternity here in the Matthew 25 passage

32:14 the Lord goes on to describe his activity speaking to those who are blessed speaking to those who are cursed blessing upon the sheep cursing upon the goats and then we read in verse 4 verse 46 at the conclusion of that passage and these shall go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life and the same word eternal is used with respect to punishment as is used for life and as sure as that life is a quality of life but also a duration so the punishment is not only a quality but a duration the judgment is irreversible similarly in the Revelation 20 passage and it says that those who are condemned out of the books are cast into the lake of fire and what will happen in that horrible reality set forth under the image is described in the earlier verses the beast and the false prophet cast into that lake of fire tormented forever and ever it's a simple simple reality as death leaves you the judgment

33:41 will find you and as the judgment finds you eternity will hold you do you get that?

33:53 dear people do you get that? as death leaves you the judgment will find you the judgment will find you no change no moral no spiritual no ethical change between death and judgment as death leaves you the judgment will find you and as the judgment finds you eternity will hold you that's a sobering reality no escape from it I can remember as a little boy lying upon my bed and though those were not the words that were in my head that was the words that were in my head that was the words that were in my head that was the words that were in my head that was the words that were in my head and that reality fastened itself upon my young soul and I lay upon my bed many a night afraid to go to sleep knowing that if I died in my sleep as death left me the judgment would find me and as the judgment would find me eternity would hold me and I can remember thinking in my tortured little boy brain but oh God forever and ever and ever what is eternity? forever and ever surely God after so many years I thought as a child and tried to define and understand eternity in terms of the succession of blocks of time

35:22 and I can remember many a night falling to sleep distressed and terrified you say what a horrible thing no my friend I thank God for it because God was bringing my little boy mind into touch with reality the fact that you've been able to pillow your head night after night and year after year with no such thoughts is no credit to your good sense it's a monument to the power of the devil to blind you to reality and to stupefy you and to benumb you and to paralyze all efforts to seek the Lord while he may be found and to call upon him while he is near there will be no systems of appeal in God's day of judgment there will be no overturning of the verdict because of some discovered irregularity in the legal process there will be no one to declare that the evidence that condemned you was somehow inadmissible we read this morning of him who judges every man's work without respect of person dear children young people and adults this is the third fact that I want you to contemplate think upon for but a few moments judgment is certain

The Important Question: Are You Prepared to Die?

36:49 and irreversible well we've looked now at these three facts life is brief and uncertain would you debate that? would you want to prove that to be non-fact? to say no I can't deny that that's a matter of common observation and also it is affirmed in the scriptures death is unavoidable in some cases and sometimes sudden would you want to say you're going to be the first one since Adam to find a way to cheat death? do you really believe when utterly godless purely mechanistic scientists and philosophers say eventually they're going to find the secrets that will let us perpetuate this life you really don't believe that you know better you know better no death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden and judgmental judgment is certain and irreversible those are the three undeniable facts and that leads to one simple reasonable personal important question that I would I had the time and that you would give me the privilege of sitting down with you personally and sitting with you every one of you here from the youngest to the oldest and saying in the light of these three facts here's the important question are you

38:18 prepared to die? very simple question are you right now sitting here today are you prepared to die?

38:32 would you want to die? all other reasons being set aside for extending your life and just isolating this issue what will death do with me? will it release my spirit from this body to go immediately into the presence of Christ to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord and to be at home with the Lord I desire Paul says to depart and to be with Christ which is very far much more better that's a more literal rendering of the Greek he piles up one thing after another it's much much better would you be able to say yes I am prepared to die and death holds no terror for me are you prepared to die? will you say how can I be prepared to die? what is the heart of preparation? what is the heart of preparation?

The Heart of Preparation: A Person, Jesus Christ

39:24 what is the heart of preparation? what is the heart of preparation? for death well let me give you three texts of scripture in answer to that question first of all preparation for death is found in a person in a person it's not found in what you are what you do what you hope to do what you've not done but listen to this person who speaks in John 11 and verse 25 Jesus said unto her that is unto Martha I am the resurrection and the life of Mary he that believes on me though he die yet shall he live and whosoever lives and believes on me shall never die our Lord's using a play on words he says I am the resurrection and the life he that believes on me though he dies physically yet shall he live in the day of resurrection he will not only be called out of his grave he'll be called out of his grave to everlasting life and whosoever thus lives and believes on me shall never die that is he will never know death as the wages of sin he will never know death as separation from God he will never know death in the torments of hell for all of that that is in death out of Christ Christ is swallowed up in his own death

40:51 and in his own resurrection John Owen rightly entitled his work on the significance of the death of Christ the death of death in the death of Christ Christ took to himself everything that is penal everything that is judgmental in death and he swallowed it up in his agonies upon the cross in his literal death when he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and by his own resurrection according to 1 Corinthians 15 he brought out of the tomb with him in death in principle and in covenantal engagements of God the Father and God the Spirit all of his redeemed ones and all who come to Christ and believe upon Christ they need not fear death for he says they shall never die yes they may pass through the valley of the shadow of death and they may experience death as separation of soul and body yes but they do not die in the sense of the death of Christ the terrors of the law coming upon them for the wages of their sin Christ has borne this he has borne the curse he has taken all that God's justice demands because of the sins of his people the second text how can we be ready to die

42:19 the answers in a person and believing in him Hebrews chapter 2 gives us another strand of the answer Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14 since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood he also himself in like manner partook of the same that through death he might bring to nothing him that had the power of death that is the devil and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage

43:05 you see when the writer to the Hebrews penned these words he assumes that people not given over to judicial hardness experience a form of bondage when they think of dying and standing before God in the nakedness of their sinfulness and so they live under the fear of death one of the tragedies of the paganizing of our current American society is that multitudes have no fear of death I don't know if you've heard I don't know if you've heard I don't know if you've heard I didn't think that's possible but I've interacted with enough people to believe that they really don't fear death they have so imbibed a totally secular view of man and of life and of what it's all about but the writer to the Hebrews speaks of those who through fear of death are crippled with this horrible bondage and how are we released from that if I speak to some tonight to some dear children for whom the thought of death is terrifying to some who are closer to the end of your three score and ten or your four score years and you know that the next great crisis in your life is going through the rough door of death and there is an element of fear and with it bondage what is the answer of this text is to recognize that in the incarnate Lord of glory

44:32 the second person of the Godhead who took to himself flesh and blood he took to himself a true humanity in order that in that humanity he might destroy the one who has the power of death the devil to whom we sold ourselves when in our first parents we sinned and we aligned ourselves with the devil God came and broke up that alignment and said I will put enmity between the serpent and the woman between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman had God not injected that enmity we would all been the willing slaves of the devil forever but Christ has come the incarnate God has come and through his own death he has destroyed him that had the power of death so that believing in him we are liberated from that crippling carking bondage of the fear of death the answer is in a person it's in a person who is incarnate deity who died to destroy the power of the devil himself and one third text is Revelation 14 13 the text I preached on at the funeral parlor yesterday when we asked the question how can I be prepared to die this text is very helpful

46:00 in answering the question Revelation 14 13 and I heard a voice from heaven saying write blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth yes says the spirit that they may rest from their labors for their works follow with them blessed perfectly happy completely fulfilled with covenant life and blessing from the hand of God are the dead who die in the Lord that is those who when they come to the rough door of death do not come alone they come in union with Christ that's what in the Lord means blessed are the dead who die united to Christ in Christ bound to Christ but you say how do I get into Christ how am I bound to Christ from God's perspective we are bound to Christ when by the spirit of Christ we are made new we are born again we are quickened to life we are made new creatures from the human response perspective we are bound to Christ when by faith we embrace him as he is offered in the gospel and so as we come around full circle having faced these three sobering facts

47:28 life is brief and uncertain death is unavoidable and sometimes sudden judgment is certain and irreversible and in the light of those facts we come to contemplate this important question am I ready to die how can I be ready to die the answer is in a person who said I am the resurrection and the life in a person who is incarnate deity who by his death destroyed him that had the power of death that he might deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage those who are in Christ in Christ by faith they and all of them are prepared to die, but they, and only they, can contemplate their death as a blessing. Isn't it grievous when people just churn out all of this nonsense, regardless of a person's relation to Christ? If they've suffered a long lingering death, people so lightly and in a cavalier way say, well, they're better off now, they're at rest. Not if they died out of Christ.

The Emptiness of Life Without Christ in the Face of Death

48:37 Their fiercest agonies in this life are playthings to what they now and shall yet experience. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. You see, dear children and young people, you may be able, in God's common grace, having surrounded you with loving parents, stable home, relatively good health, you may be able to think life is fairly full without Christ. But I want to ask you a very simple question.

49:14 If you knew you were going to die before this day were over, what comfort could you find in all the things that now fill up your soul and make you indifferent to Christ?

49:28 Not much, could you?

49:30 If you were lying on a deathbed, would your friends standing around you, weeping, holding your hand, prepare you to stand before Almighty God?

49:43 All of your ambitions and plans, if you could materialize them before your own eyes and then touch them with your hands, you want to cling to them? Would you go through the rough door of death?

49:59 Would you?

50:01 There's only one consolation in death, and that's to know that you cling to the pierced hands of the Son of God, and that you are in Him by a real and lively faith. As the old writers would say, you're united to Him who has already gone into the jaws of death, and died death in all of its horrors, and came forth in resurrection, power and glory, and now says to all, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. As I was preparing the message, I thought of some of you dear children. You're in my arms every day, every Lord's Day at the door, and your love for me is in your eyes, and I hope you read my love for you in the next few days. In my eyes and in my arms. And the last thing I want to do is to unnecessarily terrify you. I don't want to do that.

An Appeal to Children: Trust in Jesus

51:01 Dear children, listen to me. Let me tell you what I used to tell my children from time to time. I would be called out of bed, and one of the children would say, Daddy, I've been thinking about God and my sins and dying, and what would happen if I died tonight?

51:18 And again and again I would tell them,

51:21 Jesus died for sinners. Jesus promises all who believe in him are forgiven. No one ever dropped into hell trusting in Jesus. Are you ready here and now to say, Lord Jesus, I want to trust you to forgive my sins, and without in any way, quote, decisioning them and making a monument to what they did, I just pointed them to Christ and said, pillow your head with peace if you're trusting in Jesus.

51:50 And I can say that to any one of you children. You are trusting only in the Lord Jesus to forgive you. Death can do you nothing but land you in the presence of Jesus.

52:04 That's all it can do. It can just chase you up to heaven. That's all it can do. Nothing more.

52:11 That's all it can do. But the question is, are you trusting in Jesus? Are you saying, Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I have nothing to present to you.

52:25 I do try. I do obey mommy and daddy. And I do try to be a good girl, a good boy. And there's nothing wrong with that.

52:31 But, oh, Lord, I know that I'm not as good as I ought to be. I'm a sinner. And I know my first father, Adam, sinned. And somehow I was connected with him.

52:41 And what he did affects me. And, God, I know that I can't earn heaven by what I've done or what I am. But I thank you that you sent your son to die for sinners. And, Lord Jesus, I trust you.

52:55 I trust in you and only in you. You need not be terrified, children. Trusting in Jesus, no one, young or old, ever died, went to judgment, and would be cast into hell. But those of you who've come beyond those infant years, you've begun to sort out the directions of your life and the priorities of your life.

An Urgent Appeal to Adults: Seek the Lord Now

53:24 You've sat in this place many a time and heard the word of God preached. I want to ask, I want to ask you, sitting here tonight, what grounds do you have to do anything other than go home tonight terrified unless you seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near? You do not know what a day may bring forth.

53:48 Life is brief and uncertain.

53:53 As I was prayerfully considering how can I try to get inside your head and reason with you, my final perspective is this. It's this. Suppose, just suppose, this coming week, you were to be the next living proof that life is uncertain. And I were to receive the unexpected phone call at my study that I received this past Wednesday.

54:19 Mr. Buncha went out to work in his garden on Tuesday and he dropped dead.

54:29 Suppose the phone call came saying, Pastor Martin, put your name in there. Put your name in there. Right now, in your mind, put your name in there. John Jones, put your name in there.

54:44 Was killed in an accident at work. On his or her way to this or that, was struck by a car and suddenly dead. I want to ask you a simple question. What words of comfort from the Bible could I give were I asked to conduct your funeral?

55:06 What words of comfort could I give to your mom and dad, to your husband, to your wife? What solid biblical grounds of comfort could I give to say, Mom, Dad, I know it's painful and grievous. All the hopes and plans suddenly shoved to one side by the intrusion of death. But Mom or Dad, listen.

55:29 And then your name. It is evident that your name was trusting in Christ, looking only to Christ, manifesting a vital attachment to Christ. Our loss, is the Savior's gain. We said, Oh Lord, I will that they be with us for a long time.

55:49 But Christ was praying, Father, I will that those whom you have given me be with me where I am. And His I will overruled ours. Could I give that consolation to your husband, to your wife, to your mom, to your dad? See what I'm doing?

56:10 I'm trying to get you to think seriously about the issue. Are you prepared to die? If not, I urge you, seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.

56:28 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. He will multiply pardon.

A Personal Challenge: What Comfort Could I Give at Your Funeral?

56:43 May God grant that the shadows cast over my own spirit from that modest service in the funeral, from that modest service in the funeral, home yesterday, these shadows that will issue in life to some who sit here tonight and finally the Spirit of God through the Word has arrested you and you say, I must delay no longer. I cannot afford the luxury of playing Russian roulette with my never-dying soul. Outer darkness, weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth. It's too serious to trifle with my soul.

57:23 Incarnate God, hanging on a cross, crying out in dereliction, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His cry of triumph, it is finished. These things will no longer be treated as commonplace by me. They will become the stuff that mean more to me in life than life itself.

Prayer for Repentance and Boldness

57:46 May God grant that it shall be so. Let us pray. Oh, our Father, we confess to you with shame the dullness and the hardness of our hearts that we can draw near to such sobering, weighty realities and feel so little and do so little. Have mercy upon our dull, insensitive minds and hearts.

58:23 And, oh, God, we beg of you for your glory and for the good of the souls of men and women and boys and girls. Bring these weighty realities home with power. May we, sitting here tonight, taste the powers of the age to come. And may some mark this night as the night when, in earnest, they sought you and found you in the way of repentance and faith.

58:53 Help us who, by your grace, have been brought to union with Christ, for whom death does not hold the terror and the bondage. We ask you, Lord, to give us a renewed sense of what it is to be those who have the message of life in a world marked for death. And may we be more bold, and may we be more winsome, and may we be more earnest in our prayers. Oh, Lord, we ask that you would help us, for we know that in a very real sense it is only when we are prepared to die that we are fit to live.

59:30 Help us then so to live as those who, having been prepared for death by your grace, we may be used to see others made right with you. Thank you for this day in your courts and pray that your spirit will watch over his own word to our prophet and to your praise.