THE LORD GOING BEFORE IN RELATION TO DEATH
L. Bernard
The Lord has gone before. As our brother said, He went into death, but death could not hold Him. He who had the might of death had to give way. You might ask, ‘Why did He go into death?’ Sin had no dominion over Him; He went into death for you and for me. No doubt it speaks here as to those who would be left behind, and as He faces death He knew that there would be troubled hearts, so He says to these lovers, “Let not your heart be troubled”. He gave them a confidence in Himself that where He was going. His desire was that they should be there and by so doing He had to go into death and by going into death, He had to be raised and He was raised by the might of the power of God.
Our brother spoke as to the Lord saying, “I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again” (John 10: 18), and that is so because He is a divine Person. He went into death because He wanted to secure men for God, men that had been lost through sin by the fall of Adam. Remember in the beginning of this book, God spoke to Adam saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou shalt freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt certainly die”, Genesis 2: 16, 17. Death is cast upon all men because all men have sinned, and through the disobedience of one, sin entered into the world, but through the obedience of one, Christ, what enters in? Mercy, grace, love and eternal salvation. Death is not the end of things. Death here is the end of what occupies us here, but what God has in mind, what the Lord has in mind, is life eternal, and you can find it in that blessed Man, the One who has died, the One who was buried, the One who was raised for our justification and the One who has ascended.
Now, He is encouraging those that remain. He says, “Let not your heart be troubled”, and our sister and our brother here, and the rest of the family, would not be troubled of the homegoing of our brother because what the Lord says, “for I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. That is the place that we as believers are looking forward to and I trust everyone in this room might have that firm foundation, an anchor to the soul. This life is passing and everything that is attached to it is passing, but what divine Persons have in mind is that you should enjoy life eternal, and where are you going to enjoy this? In the company of Christ Himself. Think of that, it is sobering, but He says here, “for I go to prepare you a place”, and that place is already prepared, it is prepared for prepared persons. If there is anyone here who has not yet accepted Christ as their personal Saviour, may it be so today.
We are in the presence of death, and death is cast upon all men because all have sinned, but as I have said, death is not the end. God did not intend man to die, but because of the disobedience death was cast upon all men, but the glory our brother spoke of is before us. That place which the Lord has provided is entirely out of death; it is life for evermore. Think of that. Man’s life here is just a span, but God has provided Christ, who has died so that you and I might live. The scripture says, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6: 2), “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts”, Hebrews 3: 7. May every heart be softened to receive God’s word today. He is speaking, He speaks as to death, because death is the end of things here, but He speaks also as to life—life eternal, life in Christ. How, you might ask, am I going to prepare and get ready? I think those two things are essential; the preparation and readiness. You prepare by accepting Christ as your personal Saviour. He took your sin and my sin in His body and was crucified on the cross, and raised the third day for our justification, and the scripture says if you believe these things you are saved. Not saved only for time, but saved for eternity. Now is the time to prepare, and now is the time to look on to Christ’s day when He shall come. The Lord says, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. Those are the ones who have accepted Him here in this scene, and look for His coming. It says, “the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first”; our brother here will be among those that rise first, “then we the living who remain”, that is believers, “shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17. May it be in every believer’s heart, waiting for the coming of Christ.
‘The sky, not the grave, is our goal’ (Hymn 238)
Our brother had that in his heart and in his affections, but the Lord came and He took him, and He is coming one day at the rapture to take every one that believes on Him and “thus we shall be always with the Lord”. What a glorious God, what an anchor for the soul! May our hearts be touched, although in a time of sorrow, may there come out joy and blessing and glory for God. Amen.
Word at the Burial Meeting of Thomas Noel, Ormond Beach
November 2010