CHRIST’S VICTORY
S. Drever
If our brother were here today he would have said, ‘Do not speak about me—speak about Jesus’, which is why I have read this scripture. I do not know if there is anyone here that is afraid of death, but if there is, you know our brother’s whole life was dedicated to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ, who had relieved him of the fear of death. Our brother used to love to speak about Jesus, his Saviour. When he was in soul exercise as a young man, in relation to the awfulness of his sins and what their penalty would be before a holy God, someone said to him, ‘The greater the sinner, the greater the Saviour’. And he laid hold of that by faith; he put his trust in Jesus, the One who came here, as we have in this scripture that we have read, to relieve us from the fear of death. It must be awful to be in fear of death. To a dying infidel they said, ‘Hang on, man?’, and he said, ‘Ah, but I have nothing to hang on to!’ Our Lord Jesus Christ came here as a Man and did the will of God in perfection, and then gave His life at Calvary. He conquered death that we might be free, might be free from the fear of death, free from the consequences of our sins. What a Saviour Jesus is!
How our brother loved Jesus! His life was a life of devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ and His interests here. I can bear witness to that over the many years that I have known him. What an example he has left for every one of us, for his children, and those of us who were privileged to
know him. We are in sorrow, we are in mourning today, because we have all lost a father. As was said the other night, we feel like Elisha did when Elijah was taken away. But the testimony goes on; the word of God is with us, the Spirit of God is still here. The testimony is nearing its end. The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is imminent. How our brother loved to speak about that! So, as I have said, if there is anyone who has the fear of death it can be taken away today through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who went into death and conquered it and broke its power for ever.
Now, as a matter of comfort, I want to refer to Psalm 127: 2—“So to his beloved one he giveth sleep”. Our dear brother, whose body is with us now, was greatly loved of Jesus, and I think we can apply this scripture. This psalm is applicable to the life of our brother. He devoted his life to the service of our Lord Jesus, and now you see that to His beloved one He has given sleep. I would just commend that to all of us as to a special evidence of the love of Jesus for him. May we all be encouraged, and especially our dear sister and the family, in the name of the Lord Jesus.