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There is no man that hath power
over the Spirit to retain the Spirit. Neither hath he power
in the day of death. And there is no discharge in
that war. Neither shall wickedness deliver
those that are given to it. Amen. This was Boy and the Word,
a prayer as a people before God. Let us seek the Lord together.
For, Father in Heaven, we come to Thee now to what is the most
important part of a worship service, the preaching and the exposition
of Thy Word. And, Father, we pray that tonight
the Word of God will come to our hearts with freshness and
with power. We pray, Father, that Thou would deliver us from
sermonizing, that Thou would deliver us, Lord, from three-point
sermons, that, Lord, Thou would give us Holy Ghost-inspired preaching. The Lord will go forth like an
iron and will sear the conscience, will reach the heart, will deliver
sinners from their comforts, Lord, and show them that there
is great danger in delay. That there is, Lord, not only
the threat of the law, but there is the reality of being brought
unto the power of the curse of the law of God. Father, we pray
in grace, Thou would have mercy. Help us, we pray, and blesses
over these nights as each time we return to the Scriptures.
What a privilege! What an honour to come and to
preach. What an honour, Lord, to sit and to hear the Word of
God read and preached. May thy people tonight be blessed.
May they drink from the Word. May they fill their hearts with
gospel truth that flows from the river of life. from the throne
of God. Speak, we pray, for Christ's
sake. Amen and Amen. Well, men and
women, it's very clear that death is not a very popular subject
amongst, I can say, both Christian and unchristian. It is true that
the unsaved most certainly don't like to be reminded that they
must needs die. And there is, in another sense,
a certain fear within the heart of the child of God. Maybe not
to the same degree, but God's people do shrink away whenever
they hear sermons preached on death or when the news comes
to them that they too must needs die. Many a believer has received
news, maybe perhaps through an illness or maybe through a relative
that has just tragically been given the same news. And it's
news that we don't welcome. It's news that causes our hearts
and our whole being to perhaps recoil in a fear. And yet, God's
Word has much to say to us about that. Death, you see, is not
something natural. I know preachers, perhaps through
a slip of the tongue, may say it is the most natural thing
for men to die. Death is the most unnatural thing
for man. From the point of view, as we
go to Genesis and the creation of man, we find that man who
was made body and soul, or body, spirit and soul, he was not made
to die. He was born with a body that
had the potential to live and go on forever. I am not sure
if you have ever wondered about that. But if you go back to Genesis
3, when God made man body and soul, He was not created to die. He was made to live and to glorify
his Creator God. That's the way man was made.
His body had, can I say, the potential to die. It had the
potential to corrupt. But God made man incorruptible
in his pristine state. That is something that we all
must agree on. But nevertheless, there was that
potential. as we now know, because man is
a dying creature. But it, at the beginning, was
not something natural. Adam was made to live. He was
created perfect. But yet, through sin and with
the entrance of sin, he became a man who began to die. Now,
if you go back with me, please, to Genesis chapter 2, and you
know these words so well, at least I trust you do. Maybe you've
never heard these words before. Maybe you've never lifted a Bible
before. I don't know. But Genesis chapter
2 and verse number 17. The command of God. This is the
law of God. Of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, Adam, thou shalt surely die. So we
can see right away here that Adam was not dying as a man. He was a living soul. Isn't that what we are told in
Genesis? God made him a living soul. He was created living and
he was living right up until this point. Until when he disobeyed
that command, that covenant command, he took of the fruit given to
him by Eve and he began to die. See, up until The point, right
until when Eve took that fruit. And remember when Eve took of
the fruit, Adam did not die. She was not the covenant head.
Adam was the covenant head. Have you ever wondered that?
Why did the fall? Why did the curse not come in
whenever Eve took of the fruit and she tasted the fruit? Why
did God not pronounce the curse on her? It wasn't until she gave
her husband Adam, and then Adam took the fruit and he ate of
that And then, in that very moment, his eyes were opened, his understanding
took on a new dimension of who God was, of what sin was, of
who he was, and he began to die. Adam was the covenant head. He
was the one to whom the Word was given. Adam, the day thou
weakest, thou shalt surely die. Death remained a curse. Death
remained a threatened curse. At the very moment when Adam
took of the fruit and broke the Word of God, broke the command
of God, he as a creature began to die, but began to experience
in his own heart that this curse of which my Creator spoke of
is no longer a threat, but is now a present reality in every
part of my created being. That is a very solemn truth,
men and women. that whenever Adam or father
died in sin, it affected every part of him which God had created. His mind was affected, his will,
his footsteps, his speech, his hearing, what he heard, his very
lips, how he saw his wife. Up until that point, he saw his
wife as something to be loved, cherished, and adored. But the
moment he felled, his attitude towards his wife changed. He
blamed her. He treated her as an object of
contempt. He talked behind her back. He
gossiped about her. You know, God, it was my wife.
It's not my fault. It was her fault. Blame her. Everything about him, that is
Adam, was changed. But let's look at a number of
things this evening. When God cursed Adam, when the
curse of the law of God, thou shalt surely die, what did that
actually mean for Adam? He began to die physically, yes.
But with that, you know, men and women, let's understand this
how the Bible explains it. The fall of man was not only
death. The fall of man brought many
things. One thing it did do, it deprived
Adam of the image of God. He was no longer, like his Creator,
consistent in holiness and righteousness. He was now a creature who possessed
shame. He had a conscience that was
full of guilt, full of shame. But here's something that God
cursed Adam with, and something that remains with you, man or
woman, whether you be a believer, whether you be a A Christian
or not, it remains in your heart today, this night, and it explains
why you have a fear of death. One of the parts of the curse
was this, that Adam now possessed a terrified conscience. He knew
the words of God, Adam, the day that you eat, you will die. And Adam heard those words, he
heard them in perfection. How Adam fell, we don't know.
We can't explain how Adam fell. How did a creature who was made
like God, that is, in the image of God, possessing holiness,
righteousness, how did he fall? We can't explain that. But we
do know this, that Adam did fall. And one of the things that came
with the fall was a terrified conscience. The curse is all
that Adam can think of. What about the curse that my
Creator spoke of? When will it be effected? When
will I hear its pronouncement on me? How did Adam display his
terrified conscience? He runs from the presence of
God and he hides in the darkest part of the garden. You know
how John tells us that man loves darkness rather than light? Adam demonstrated that right
at the very beginning. Man loves darkness rather than
light. Adam, who was created in light,
he falls into darkness and he runs to the darkness part of
the garden, terrified. Terrified because he knows that
he must die. He must die. And God comes and
He tells him that. Adam, and I know that we can't
explain this, but I often think to myself that God who created
Adam, who communed every day with Adam. Let's get this right,
men and women. God loved Adam. God loved him. God came down
and spoke with him. They walked together. They knew
the presence. They enjoyed each other's presence
as friends do. And yet here God must come to
his friend, or who was his friend, and say to him, Adam, you must
die. I cannot withhold the sword of justice. You must die. And Adam knows that. Their friendship
is gone. And he has good reason to fear
God. He has good reason to run from
God. In the same way that men still run from God today. Because
they know the curse of God is upon them. Why do you fear death
tonight? And why in the Christian? To
a lesser degree, why does the believer run, not like to speak
about death? I don't cherish the thought of
death. If I was to go to the doctor tomorrow and he says to
me, Paul, you have six months to live, do I go home rejoicing
and say, well, God is sovereign. Amen, He is sovereign. And that's
how you cope with those kind of things, knowing that God is
sovereign. But do I shrug it off as a believer and say, well,
I'm a Christian. Those things don't scare me. No, I don't.
I can tell you now, I will weep and I will search my heart and
I will be afraid. Because I, as a creature of God,
descending from my father, Abraham, or from my father, Adam, I have
a terrified conscience. And you have a terrified conscience.
Now, when we come here this evening to Ecclesiastes chapter 8, we
find here that Solomon, the wise man, is actually bringing home
to men these truths. Look at verse 7 again. Ecclesiastes
chapter 8 and verse number 7. For he knoweth not that which
shall be, for who can tell him when it shall be? There is no
man that hath power over the spirits. That's not speaking
about the Holy Spirit, by the way. I know that John tells us
that no man can tame the Spirit. We cannot know when it blows
or where it listseth. So is every man who is born of
the Spirit. It is not speaking of that. It is speaking of the
Spirit within us. The very breath of God. The soul
of man. There is no man who can retain
the Spirit or has power to hold the Spirit. He has no power in
the day of death. There is no discharge, there
is no release in the day of death. Why should you fear death? Solomon
says there's why. For one thing you don't know
when the day of your death is coming. Adam didn't know whenever
he heard those words, you shall surely die. He now knows he must
die. And he's thinking to himself,
well, when will I die? That remains unknown to man.
The appointed time of death is unknown, man and woman. Your
future is unknown. Look again at verse 7. Solomon
is saying to us here that the future, not one of us knows what
it is. For he knoweth, that is man,
he knoweth not that which shall be. In other words, we don't
know what the future will be. Now many will attempt to read
the future. Many will go to their stars or their horoscopes or
the zodiac and they will try and predict what their future
might be. And can I just say, That as God's
people, you should not be engaging in that kind of behaviour. Reading your stars, lifting the
paper, and wondering what your prediction will be for that day.
There's no man knoweth what shall be on tomorrow. And Russell Grant
certainly doesn't know that. At least that's who it was whenever
I was growing up. Or any of these guys. You go
to Deuteronomy 18 in verse 10 and Moses tells you very plainly
that sorcerers, divination, astrology, there's nothing wrong with looking
at the stars by the way, one of the greatest astronomers of
all time was Charles Spurgeon. In fact we're told that a large
portion of Spurgeon's library, remember there were tens of thousands
of books in that library, that a large section of Spurgeon's
library was actually consisted of secular books. And he had
a whole section on the stars and astrology and Yes, he used
to give lectures in London on stars. So, there's nothing wrong
with stargazing if you have the time to do that, brother or sister.
But what I'm saying is there is no place in God's Word for
you to try and divine your way through life. Try to predict
what will become of you this time by twelve o'clock tonight,
or by half past ten, or even by nine o'clock tonight. No man
knoweth what is in the morrow, and no man knoweth which shall
Be. Now that is especially true in
regards to the day of your death. That is what he is saying here,
because you read through verse 7. No man knows which shall be,
for who can tell him, look at these words very carefully, when
it shall be. Nobody can tell you when it shall
be. When what shall be? The day of
your death. The day of your departure from
this earth. There's no man. No man can say, there's the day
I will die. There's the time. There's the
precise moment. No man knows that. That knowledge
belongs on to God alone. And it's a very sobering thought.
I'm trying to say to you tonight, why should you fear death? And
I'm not using that as a means to frighten you into a profession
of faith. What I'm doing is I'm trying to bring you to see that
God alone knows that. And you must prepare yourself
in light of that. You must go to God and say, Lord,
I know not when I shall die, when the day of my death is at
hand, but Lord, I want to be ready and prepared for that time.
No man knows when it will be. It might be you're one of these
people who are keep fit fanatics. And you get up in the morning
and you feel very good. And that may give you confidence. And
there's truth in that, that when you exercise, you sleep better,
you study God's Word better, you study work better, you function
better. But there are many, you know,
who would actually be confident enough in their own physique
to say, well, you know, today is not the day of my death. I
can give you many examples tonight of men and women who have got
up in the morning and felt well in themselves. And by five o'clock that night,
they're in God's eternity. I'm thinking, you know, you all
heard the tragic story of Lorraine Stewart last week. the wife of
Alfie Stern, I'm sure many of you know her or know him, the
footballer, driving to Ballymena with her young children. Dropped
a young man off for his sports, played for Ballymena United.
Young woman of 42 years of age. And the report in the newsletter
went this way, she got up that morning and she felt as well
as she did every other day. There was no complaints, no signs
of anything underlying her health. On the road between Ballymena
and Randallstown, she just slumped over at the wheel and she was
gone. You don't know the day of your
death. You don't know when it shall be, but there's no escaping
that day. I can remember so well last year,
two years ago in fact, when our son was being born. At the very
same time, my mother's cousin, a young woman who's probably
a lady in her forties, was diagnosed with lung cancer at the very
same time. My wife Kay was in one ward and
this old lady was in the other ward. By the time my wife came
home, I think two or three days, the young lady who played tennis
taught her own children how to play it. One of the loveliest
persons you could ever care to meet, a lovely woman. Yet by
that time she was ushered out into God's eternity. She had
the physical side, strong, everything going well. And yet the day of
her death was unknown. No man can tell these things.
The day of your death, there's no man can tell you, well here's
the day when you can die. I was thinking tonight near Belshazzar.
You know how his father Nebuchadnezzar was a great man for the astrologers.
and how he loves to bring them in and have them protect the
future. But do you remember that night in the city of Babylon
when Belshazzar, when the hand appeared on the wall, pointing
to the day of his death? He calls for the wise men, he
calls for the stargazers, he calls for the readers of the
stars, the astrologers, they all brought him, and yet not
one of them can tell him when he's going to die. But God alone through Daniel
says, Tonight, O King, your kingdom is finished. Your life has run
its course and you must, like all men, you must needs die. Dear Unsaved tonight, I want
you to understand this. Daniel tells you tonight that
God holds in His hand your breath. And should God close that hand
at any time, your life will come to an end. It all goes back to
the day of creation. What was the final act of God
in creation? It was the giving of the soul
to man. God made Adam, but He made him a living soul, the creation
of the soul. It is God's will. It was God
who gave the soul. And it will be God who requires
that soul again. Job 34, verse 14. If God sets
His heart upon man to gather him unto Himself, His spirit
and breath. All flesh shall perish together,
and man shall return to the dust. That is what Job tells us. If
God sets His mind to gather a man, to call His soul in, to take
life from that man, and no man knows when that time shall be,
but when it comes, that man's life, his existence as far as
this life is known, comes to an end. So there's a reason why
you should fear death. The appointed time of death is
unknown. But look at verse 8 again, of
Ecclesiastes 8. We also notice here that the
appointed time of death is unavoidable. Completely inescapable. There
is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit,
neither hath he power in the day of death. Why should you
fear death? Because when that day approaches,
and it may be a very slow death, it may be over a period of time,
but in the very moment or the time or the period leading up
to when you will be removed from this earth, there is nothing
you can do about it. It is an appointment you must
keep. It is an appointment that is unavoidable. No man, Solomon
is saying here, has the power to hold on. He has the power
to retain the Spirit. You show me one man on the face
of this earth who can stand here tonight and say, I was dying,
but I had the power to fight off death and retain my life,
to retain my Spirit, and stay alive in the face of death. You
just can't do it. No man has power to retain the
Spirit. There is nothing you can present
in the face of death as a reason why death should not take you.
Death is no respecter of persons. It is no respecter of wealth.
It is no respecter of position. The king cannot plead his position
and say, look, I have a country to run. I have this to do. I
must remain. No, the appointment must be kept.
A preacher cannot say, I have a congregation to pastor. And
I have session meetings to run. And I have a family to keep.
I must stay. I, like no man, any man, can
plead in the face of death and say, I have power to retain the
Spirit. You know, what Solomon is also
teaching us here is what he does say in chapter 3, if you turn
back to chapter 3 and verse 2. Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 2. To
everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under
the heaven. A time to be born and a time
to die. That is a precise time. Do you
ever consider the day of your birth? There was a time when
you were born. It was a precise time. The very day of your birth,
the very timing of your birth, and you all know when you go
into that maternity ward and the nurse writes down the very
moment, the hour, the time, the seconds. But even far beyond
what the midwife can do, the very moment life begins in the
womb, in that embryonic form, and life begins in that small,
yet so insignificant, but yet so minute form, there was a precise
time when life began. And at the very same time, there
is a time to be born, there is a time to die. And when that
time comes, Man or woman, it will be a precise time. That
appointment will not be a few seconds late. It will not be
a few moments early. It will be at the precise time. Turn, please, to Job 14 and the
verse 5. If you turn back, please, to Job, just before the book
of Psalms, and to Job 14 and the verse 5, here's what Job
says. seeing that his days are determined."
That is the days of man. The days of man are determined. The bounds are set. The number
of his months are with thee, Job says. The very days are determined. That is what God says tonight.
He says that the number of our months are with Him. Far beyond the months. We are
looking here at days. Job goes on to say that thou
hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. There is a timeline
that belongs to your life. It begins and it ends. It doesn't run beyond that. You
have no control over how long you live. God has set a bounds. Maybe ten years for some of the
children. Maybe twenty-five years maybe
60 years, maybe 95 years. But irrespective of how long
we live, the point is we are moving steadily towards the boundary. And when we make that boundary,
there's no drawing back, there's no moving on. We cannot retain
the Spirit in the day of death. There are other verses I'm sure
you have heard before. Job 14 and verse 14 and 15. About the days of his appointed
time. Job 7 verse 1. Is there not an
appointed time to man upon the earth? Are not his days like
the days of a hireling? That's Job 7 verse 1. The days
of an employed servant who is only hired in. You business men
know that if you hire a man in for a day's work, You set the
contract. You set the agreement and say,
I will give you employment beginning on Monday, terminating on Tuesday. The agreement is set. The contract
is drawn up. And that man cannot come to you
on Tuesday and say, well, listen, I'm staying on until Thursday
or Wednesday or Friday. You can't get rid of me. No,
you can say the contract is there. The bounds are set and you must
abide by the contract. That is why Job says that man's
days are like that of a hireling. Like the man who is hired in,
his agreement, his contract comes to an end. Like Paul in the New
Testament, it says, it is appointed. It is appointed unto man once
to die. But after this, the judgment. Look again at verse 8 of Ecclesiastes
8. When this day comes, There is
no substitution. No surrogation. We all know what
a surrogate is. One that steps in on behalf of
another. There is no surrogation allowed
on the day of one's death. My heart goes to David. My mind
goes to David. You know, when David heard of
the death of his son Absalom, he says, Oh my son, Absalom,
my son, my son Absalom, would God that I had died for thee."
But David could not die for his son Absalom. Absalom must die
alone. And he did die alone. The father,
you see, must leave the son at death. The wife must leave the
husband at death. The parent must leave the child
at death. There is no way that a man can
take the place of another. So powerful is this deadly enemy
death. Why should you fear death, dear
man or woman? It is because there is no way
that you can avoid this. It is a personal appointment.
David realized that. Would God that I could die for
thee. Yet he could not. And you must
die alone. And you will die alone. I will
die alone. I will leave my wife. I will
leave my children. Or they will leave me, whatever way God has
ordained it to be. Not one of us can say, well,
you know, I can put that appointment off by means of strength or by
any other means, physical ability. You know, Christ reminds us in
His Word when He says So powerful is this enemy death that it is
actually the very last enemy to be destroyed. The very final
enemy that Christ will put under His feet. So powerful. Powerful above all other things.
It is the last enemy to be destroyed. As I come to the end of this
message tonight, I want you to go back there to chapter 8 and
verse 8. And we see here that not only is there no power in
the day of death, The death of man is unknown. It is unavoidable. But from the hand of death there
is no discharge. There is no release. Solomon
says to us this evening, there is no discharge in that war.
It's a very interesting language that Solomon uses here. He describes
death like a war. He really means there that there
is no release in this war. There is no getting out of it.
Now the language here is taken from the Old Testament. Way back
in the books of Deuteronomy, where a man, if he had just been
married or if a man had just built himself a new home and
he had taken out debt on that home, a mortgage, he was to be
discharged from going to war because he had a family to keep,
he had a home to pay. He had just built himself a new
home. And there were rules. There were rules allowing men
to be discharged from their military duty. And yet Solomon borrows
that language from the Law of Moses. And he brings it here
to us tonight and he says, in this war there is no discharge. There is no pleading. I've got
a home to keep. I've got a family to run. I've
got a wife to keep. Children to look after. There
is no getting out of this war. He describes it as a war. There
is no release from the appointment In other words, there is no resistance
to be offered. You can't resist the approaching
foe. I could come to death with an
army. And yet death comes upon that horse alone. He comes alone
and he goes away alone. He goes away with those, that
person, the soul of whom he has come. And he comes alone And
we can go against him with all the power, all the might. But
Solomon says, neither hath he power in the day of death. No power in the day of death.
You go back to what I said in Daniel 5, verse 22. We are told
there that God in the very hand of God is the breath of every
living thing. God holds You are very heartbeat
in His hand. God holds the very days, the
number of your days in His own control. And yet when God closes that
hand on your life and brings it to an end, there is no release
from that hand. There is no discharge again.
When a man dies, the effects are irreversible. You cannot
come back to life. Now I know there are many who
will debate that today. I was just reading a report this
evening in the BBC, an online report about clinical death. When does a man die? What constitutes
death? And I will not argue with the
doctors. They will say, and actually how
they define death now is that whenever the brain no longer
functions, whenever the heart is stopped and the organs shut
down, that may be acceptable. But if somebody comes back from
that, from being pronounced clinically dead, and let's be honest, doctors
do get it wrong. And I'm not against that profession. We thank the Lord for our doctors
and those in the medical profession. But they make mistakes in the
same way preachers make mistakes. I know that the old joke used
to be that preachers try to fix their mistakes and doctors, they
bury their I know there may be a bit of humour to that, but
let's get it right here from the scriptural point of view.
When does a man die? A man dies whenever his soul
departs from the body. If you go with me to Genesis
35, verse 18, when you read there of a woman by the name of Rachel,
and we are told that she is in the process of dying, she is
giving birth to this young man, Genesis 35, verse 18, is a most
vital verse for you to refute the Jehovah's Witnesses. And
for you to deal with the Mormons. And for you to deal with men
who will deny that there is a soul and that man lives because he
has a soul. You live tonight, men, man or
woman, because there is a soul in your body. You read here what
you read. And it came to pass as her soul
was in departing. That's Rachel's soul. It came
to pass as Rachel's soul was in departing, for she died. It wasn't until her soul actually
left the body that Rachel was pronounced dead. And what I want you to see from
that is that when a man dies, and I'm looking at it from the
point a man is dead, Whenever his soul has departed the body,
there is no reversing. There is no release. There is
no discharge. Go to Job 16 and verse 22. When
a few years are come, then I shall go, Job says. I shall go the
way whence I shall not return. Job was conscious that when he
died, that he was not going to return. Job chapter 7 and verse
9. As the cloud is consumed and
vanishes away, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come
up no more." There is no man that has gone down to the grave,
no matter what Benny Hinn or any of these other charismatic
fools will say. None of them have come back from
the grave. It is absolutely against the
testimony of God's Word to say that. When a few years are come,
I shall go the way and I shall not return. Neither shall my
place know me no more." You know, we go to that passage
that is very soft in our hearts. 2 Samuel 12, verse 23. And you know how whenever David
heard the news, a little child had died. When David heard the
word that his son had died, his son, that he had to be a Sheba,
He says, but now he is dead. His spirit has departed. Wherefore
can I bring him back again? I cannot bring him back again.
Death has taken him and there is no release for that child.
There is no discharge from the day of his death. I cannot bring
him back again. I shall go to him and he shall
not return to me. It's a wonderful truth. A wonderful
truth for parents who have lost loved ones, lost children, from
whom they've been taken. We can't bring them back, though
we'd love to do it. You can't do it. But the glorious
truth for the believer is this, that I shall go to him. They
shall not return to me, but we shall go to them. There's no release from the hand
of death. There's no discharge. Death strips a man of all power,
all authority. The power that the husband has
over the wife, it is removed at death. Think of King David. All his life he is known as King
David, King David, King David. But yet when he died, what is
said of him? And David died. David died. No authority. No power. No regality. David died. That's it. He's gone. No power on the Day of Death.
No argumentation in saying, I am the King. I am King David. No. There's no discharge. No release. As I conclude tonight
and close, I do want to be seen as Dr. Gloom. We don't want to be interpreted
as being a man who loves to speak about death. It's something that
we don't enjoy preaching. It's something we don't enjoy
dwelling on. But yet, it is God's Word. And
so many times we are reminded we must not die. There's a time
to be born. There's a time to die. No man
has power in the day of his death. When shall it be? No man can
tell him when it shall be. But thank the Lord. that the
Gospel reveals that there is release, not from death, for
we all will die, but there is release from the power of death
that is found only in Christ. You know the old devil who was
a murderer from the beginning? He brought in death. Jesus Christ has said, well,
said of Satan that he is the power of death. Not that he can
kill or destroy. but that he was, as I say, the
first person to introduce sin to this world. He brought death
into the world. But Christ has destroyed him. Christ has bruised him who had
power over death. Christ, by the power of his life
and by his own blood-shedding, has destroyed him who has the
power of death. Satan has been disarmed. Death
has been disarmed. and it has been disarmed by the
cross. You know, John Owen, in his most famous work, wrote that
book, The Death of Death. The death of death in the death
of Christ. Where do we see death that brings
about the end of every man? So many. Where do we see his
death? We see it in the cross of Christ.
When Christ says, I have destroyed him, instead of the power of
death, and I can deliver them, who through, please listen to
this, who through the fear of death, all their lifetime were
subject to bondage. I began tonight by saying that
man is a creature in bondage. He is a fearful creature. He
is a terrified conscience. But Christ can deal with that
conscience. He can deal with that fear. He
can disarm that fear. He can remove that fear. But
it's only through the cross. He can deliver them who, through
fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage. You can leave this meeting tonight.
And you can go out of here a man or a woman who fears death, and
you will fear death. And you will die a man who fears
death. And you will experience what it really is then, through
all eternity, what it is to fear death. You don't know what fear
is. But you read the Gospel of Matthew
and Christ tells us what it is. What it is for a lost soul in
the depths of hell to experience fear. We don't know what hell is like.
Scripture tells us what it will be like in many ways, but no
man has been there, and certainly no man has come back. For once a man goes that way,
there's no return. But certainly the Scriptures
and Christ uses... Have you ever wondered that Christ
uses the most fearful language that will terrify man to describe
what hell is like. The darkness of darkness. You know the young child? Darkness
is something that instills terror into the life of any man, certainly
the young child. But you picture that being in
a dark room, bound by chains. Whether those chains are literal
or not doesn't make the difference. Christ says is being bound by
chains. A bottomless pit. Falling from a great height.
Those are all things that instilled fear and terror into a man. Falling
from a great height. Darkness forever. Being bound
by chains. Knowing pain. Great thirst. You haven't even begun to experience
what fear is like. But the Lord warns you tonight
that He has the power to deliver you from that fear. And that is a glorious gospel,
man or woman. That there's a Saviour to whom
you can go. Flee to Christ tonight. There's
a Saviour who can deliver from the fear of death. You're in
bondage tonight. I look down at you and I know
some of you. And I know you're not saved. And you know that
yourself. And we fear for you. We fear that that fear of which
Christ speaks and of which Job and Solomon speaks will, for
you, become a reality. And yet there is deliverance
to be had. Delivering you from the bondage I pray tonight that God will
use his word to bring about deliverance in your soul. Only Christ can
do that. I can warn you of it, but I pray
that the Lord, by his mercy and grace, will see fit to do that
this evening. Let us bow, please, in a word
of prayer. We just want to conclude our meeting in prayer. I will
be going to the door. If there is someone here tonight
that would want to speak about these things, That a greater
length will endure, you make that known. But you don't need
a preacher, you need Christ. Flee to Him. Him who has the
power to deliver you from the fear of death. Our Father in
heaven, as we...
I'm afraid to die!
Series Gospel Mission 2008
| Sermon ID | 102308111112 |
| Duration | 47:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Ecclesiastes 8:7-8 |
| Language | English |
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