BURIAL OF A BROTHER
(i) Jim Brown
Romans 8: 18; 2 Timothy 2: 3, 4
These are the words of the apostle Paul. He says "for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us". This is an epistle in which he – the great evangelist of the present dispensation – goes over the truth of the glad tidings in a very full way. How wonderful these things are! He begins with his link with the Saviour, knowing that Christ has been set forth as a mercy-seat through faith in His blood; he knows Him as the One who was able to bring peace, able to justify him, able to be his deliverer and to set him here in liberty and in life as a son of God; and then he gives us this reckoning. Elsewhere he delineates his sufferings. What sufferings he endured! But he does so, not to make much of himself or of the suffering but to make much of the One who was able to sustain him in the midst of them. So we are here to make much of Christ.
The body of our dear brother is with us. He is one who has known something about link with One Who is our Saviour, Shepherd and Friend. Our brother knew Him too as a Priest who was able to stand by him in a time of suffering. He also knew what it was to suffer for the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ: He was a man who had a heart for the gospel and for the truth. I remember getting touches from him when I was a boy, touches of the glory of the Saviour whom he knew and loved. Now he is with Him with Christ in glory, with his Saviour who s stained him through all his pathway. For but brother the time of reckoning is over, for the apostle Paul the time of reckoning is over, but for those of us who are left the time of reckoning is now. I desire that everyone present, including myself, could reckon as the apostle did. What sustained Paul was the coming glory, and what sustained our brother was the coming glory; he had a sense of it in his own soul.
He finished in triumph, and I believe he did so on account of the fact that the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ was very much before him: Oh beloved, let us have a sense of the glory of Christ, of who He is in the greatness of His person, the glory of what He has done and the glory of where He now is. I believe if we have that it will sustain us in the short suffering, but through it all has shone out the unmistakable fact of his link with his blessed and glorious Saviour who was able to sustain him through it all. It is wonderful to have a time left to us; as the writer to the Hebrews says, "For yet a very little while he that comes will come, and will not delay", chap 10: 37. He is on His way: beloved; He is coming. We do not have much longer to wait, but in the meantime I believe He 1s looking for persons who can reckon as the apostle did.
Then to Timothy he says: "Take thy share in suffering". The present testimony is a time of suffering, of public departure and breakdown, but Paul would say "Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one going as a soldier entangles himself with the affairs of life that he may please him who has enlisted him as a soldier". It may be that we have allowed ourselves to become entangled in things down here, but the apostle would say this to us. Scripture abounds with persons who took their share in suffering. Stephen comes to mind in a peculiar way, one who suffered on account of the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, but he was sustained in the light of the glory of God, and of Jesus standing at His right hand.
Well, beloved, let us get a fresh glimpse of Christ where He is in glory and be found here in a fuller way in the path of devotion to His will, for His Name's sake.