GRIEF AT THE DEATH OF FAMILY/FRIENDS
Dr. W. A. Criswell
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
1-12-58 10:50 a.m.
You are listening to the services of the First
Baptist Church in Dallas. This is the pastor bringing the morning message from
the fourth chapter of the first letter to the Thessalonians. In our preaching
through the Bible, we have come to one of the tremendous, great, revealing,
apocalyptic passages in the Word of God:
But I
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no hope.
For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with him.
For this
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall not precede them which are asleep.
For the
Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we
who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore
comfort one another with these words.
[1 Thessalonians 4:13-18]
On this passage, I am preparing four sermons. The
first sermon is the morning message of this hour Grief at the Death of
Friend and Family. The second sermon is on the great apocalyptic
revelation which Paul describes in this passage: the translation of the saints,
the rapture of the church, the taking away, the catching out, of God's people
in this earth to Himself in heaven. The third sermon is a corollary. It is
entitled The Great Separation: The Earth Without A Christian—how it is
here, what it shall be here, when God's children are all taken away. And, the
last sermon, the fourth one, is entitled Forever with the Lord: The Marriage
Supper of the Lamb.
The sermon this morning will be most manifestly
incomplete. It is the beginning of the quatrain. It is entitled Grief at
the Death of Our Friends and of Our Family.
“But I would not have you without knowledge,” agnoeo.
That word “know” in English is taken from the word gno, the Greek root
word gno. And, agnoeo is “without knowledge, not to know.”
“But I would not have you, my brethren, to be agnoeo,
to be without knowledge, concerning them which are asleep.” He's speaking to
Christian people. He's writing to a bereaved church. He has not been gone but
six months. He has preached to them the hope of the gospel of Christ. And,
while Paul has been away, some of their beloved family members have perished.
They have died. Their own hands have buried them and laid them away.
And, they have sent word to the holy apostle and
asked, concerning these that their own hands have laid away, “What of them? Do
they share in the kingdom of God? Do they have a place in that eternal glory? What
of these who have died and, there still is no appearing of the Lord; there's no
presence of Jesus; there's no consummation or fulfillment of the wonderful
promises in Him? What of these who have been buried away?”
So, he writes, “I would not have you without
knowledge, my brethren, concerning them which are”—and, he uses a word that is
distinctly Christian. They used to call it a graveyard, but when the gospel of
the Son of God began to be preached, the Christian people began to use the
Greek word koimeterion, a sleeping place.
That's why the catacombs were built. The pagan
world burned their dead. To them, the house was just dust and ashes, and the
life was forever perished and all hope was gone. But, the Christians never
burn their dead—never. It was inconceivable to the Christian that the body of
Christ should be burned like a pagan, like a heathen. They carefully embalmed
the body of our Lord with spices, wrapped it in a winding sheet, reverently,
devoutly, laid that body to rest. Even though they were not acquainted with
the glorious doctrine, or else their hearts were without understanding and they
could not realize it, that the third day He would live again. But, after that
glorious pronouncement, the gospel, the good news: “He is alive. He is not
here. He lives.”
The Christians never burned their dead, but they
carefully laid them away. And, they called the place where they laid their
beloved dead a koimeterion, a sleeping place. We have it in our
language a cemetery. It's the same Greek word, except we pronounce it in
English: cemetery, asleep.
“I would not have you without knowledge, brethren,
concerning them which are asleep.” A new word, a new persuasion, a new hope, a
new gospel; this is the Christian message. “That you sorrow not even as others
who have no hope.” What Paul was speaking of there—the general and universal
lack of knowledge. The harsh word of the translation here is certainly
correct: “ignorance”—the lack of knowledge of the world concerning the state of
these who are fallen asleep.
What of the dead? To the superstitious animist
who lives in Africa, who lives in the heart of heathen lands, the visitation of
death is a terror full of fear and fright and dark superstition. By witchcraft
and fetish, by the arts of the necromancer, by every superstition of device, he
seeks to flee away. He is frightened by the presence of death. It is an awful
and a terrible and a fearful visitation.
There are those who are not superstitious, who are
not animists, whose eyes and minds are not clouded with heathen darkness, who
have in their hands an open Bible, and yet who so misinterpret, whose exegesis
of the passages of the Book is so far at an alien to the revelation of God,
that they bring forth and teach strange doctrines concerning these who are
dead. For example, they have a doctrine of soul sleeping. The body is laid awake,
and the soul of soul is laid awake in the dark and in the night and in death,
even though the Scriptures are so plain, so clear. “Today,” said Jesus, “Thou
shalt be with Me in paradise,” [Luke 23:43]
to the thief dying with Him on the cross. Paul: “To be absent from the body is
to be present and at home with the Lord.” In the Revelation: “I saw unto under
the altar the souls of them who had been beheaded for the word and testimony of
Christ.” And, he saw the saints in glory who were coming out of the great
Tribulation, martyred children of God.
Oh, the doctrine, strange and unknown, that ye
hear as they speak of the dead! It is the thing that the pagan world looked
into, peered into, but could never fathom or understand. The great Greek
philosopher, as he studied and pondered, almost discovered the secret of every
piece of knowledge that is available to man.
Four-hundred years before Christ, the Greek
philosopher was describing the atomic structure of this world. You think it's
new. It's not new at all. He used the word atom, “uncut,” the last division
of matter. And, the science of astronomy and medicine, physics, metaphysics,
mathematics—all are his worlds and his science.
It is the Greek philosopher who peered into the
gloom of the grave and sought to find an answer for the eternity of that
inevitable night. They had no word and no message. Socrates, the best and the
greatest Greek of them all, when he drank the hemlock, refused to be afraid,
because he said, “For me to be afraid would be to be that I knew what was
beyond death, and I do not know.” Agnoeo, “I do not know.” That very
word: “I do not know.”
“Brethren, I would not have you agnoeo—I do
not know.”
One of the travesties of the Christian faith is
this: That the bitterest, severest critical denouncers of the great hope in
Christ is not the infidel or the agnostic or the unbeliever, but it is the
preacher and minister of Christ himself. In how many pulpits, in how many
places, through how many books does the preacher ridicule and scorn with a
supercilious information and a puffed-up pride of knowledge and education all
of these great revelations of God?
To him, Jesus is not deity, just another man—a
good man, but a man. And, the Scriptures are not the inspired Word of God, and
He was never born of a virgin, and He's not God, and He didn't rise from the
dead, much less will He ever come again. Just like the Sadducees'
ecclesiastical materialism and skepticism, they laughed and made fun of the
resurrection from the dead. And, the stock joke by which they sealed every
mouth and shut up every witness was that thing they came to Jesus about. There
was a man who had a wife, and according to the levirate marriage, when he died
without sons, then his brother had to take her and try to raise up children to
his name. And, he died, and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the
sixth and the seventh brothers, all seven of them, married to that woman. And,
at last she died. “And in the resurrection—ha, ha,” said the Sadducees, “and
in the resurrection, ha,” said the Sadducees, “whose wife shall she be?” That's
the religious, ecclesiastical, ministerial materialist and skeptic and
unbeliever. And, they’re today just like they were there: “Ha, ha—the
resurrection, ha, ha.”
The answer of the Lord is eternal. God hath said,
“I am the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. I am the God of those who
trust in Me. And I am not the God of the dead, but of the living. They live
in His sight,” said the Lord. And, as for marriage, there's no procreation in
heaven. We're like the angels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael.
“I would not have you without knowledge, brethren,
concerning them which are asleep... For this we say unto you by the word of
the Lord.”
Paul says, “I say this by direct revelation from
God, from Christ Himself. No other way could we know. God has to say it. The
Lord has to reveal it. Jesus must open that door that we might look.” And, He
did.
“This we say unto you by the word of the Lord.”
It is the authority of Jesus Christ. And, this is the basis of his comfort:
We're not to sorrow as others who have no hope. “For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him.”
Paul does a thing there that I have never heard
discussed and it is this: He bases our translation, our resurrection, upon two
indisputable facts. First, that Jesus died; second, that Jesus rose again.
And, he says, if these two things are true, then they are a part of a great
spiritual sequence. “Then they who trust in Jesus will God raise up and bring
with Him.” He doesn't forsake His own. He doesn't leave to perish in the soil
and the dust and the dirt of the earth the least of His saints. If He arose,
we shall rise, too; crucified with the Lord, raised with the Lord, translated
to meet the Lord.
These great, great theologians sometimes say the
greatest chapter in the Bible, the very height of all revelation, is the
fifteenth chapter of the 1 Corinthian letter. It is the resurrection chapter.
It is the translation chapter. And, he does the same thing in the fifteenth
chapter of 1 Corinthians that he does here in the fourth chapter of
Thessalonians. He bases our hope, our resurrection, our immortalization, upon
the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I delivered unto you—got it from Jesus—that
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures;
That He
was buried, that He arose again the third day according to the Scriptures;
And that
He was seen of Cephas... and of James... and of five hundred.
And last
of all of me, as one born out of due time...
Now, if
Christ be preached that He rose from the dead…
[1 Corinthians 15:3-5, 8,
12]
Then is that remarkable, incomparable revelation
of our own resurrection and translation:
Brethren…
flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption
inherit incorruption.
But I
show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall
sound, and we shall be raised incorruptible.
[1 Corinthians 15:50-52]
He does the same thing in both passages. He bases
our hope upon two indisputable facts: That Christ died for us and that He rose
again for our justification: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” [1 Thessalonians 4:14]
May I point out to you he refers to us that we
“asleep in Jesus?” He says that Jesus died—died. Jesus died. He died the
death of the damned. Jesus died for the unjust. He tasted death for every
man. He trod the winepress of the wrath and fury of Almighty God and rich red
blood poured out. Jesus died.
We don't die. We fall asleep. And, there is the
most unusual construction: “We fall asleep.” “We who are asleep”—and, the
Greek dia, “through,” Jesus. Have it translated “in Jesus,” “we which
sleep in Jesus.” The Greek is “we sleep through Jesus.”
Wonder what that strange construction meant? It
meant that Jesus suffered for us. He died for us. The judgment of our sins
and folly fell upon Him. And, we, we just fall asleep through the atoning
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. He bore the agonies of the damned. He went down
into the valley. There did He grapple with our last great enemy. And, He came
up and up a victor over the grave. And, He tore away the sting from the
scorpion dragon of death: “And now, O grave, where is thy victory? O death,
where is thy sting?” [1 Corinthians 15:55]
He has conquered for us, dying in our stead, that we might live in Him. Jesus
died. We fall asleep.
And, then, someday—and, here, I have to
close—someday, someday, these that fall asleep, someday, these shall rise, be
raised at the voice and command of God, at the shout of Michael, the
archangel. These shall break their bonds asunder and live in His sight. And,
we who are alive and remain shall meet them, caught up together with them to be
with the Lord forever and forever. Hallelujah. Amen. God be praised.
Now, I conclude with a little word concerning we
who grieve at the death of friend and family. “I would not have you without
knowledge, brethren, concerning them which are asleep”—lay it out before us,
and your heart's broken, and the tears fall unbidden, and the light of the day
has gone down, and the soul is crushed. “That ye sorrow not as others who have
no hope”—No hope. How those two go together: “without God and without hope.”
He that has no hope of a resurrection has no hope. He that has no hope of
immortality has not God, nor to him does God exercise a providential care. No
hope. No hope.
But, we now, but we, the aged, fall asleep. How
shall I do in Christ? How shall I be? How shall my heart respond? The aged
fall asleep in Christ. Here's my father, my mother; the aged fall asleep in
the Lord.
Why, bless your heart, we're to look upon that in
the same way as we stand and see an architect pull down an old, tottering
house, in order to build a better one. And, there, he takes off the roof, and
he takes down the doors, and he pulls down the house. But, first, he sends out
the occupants. And, after the occupant is gone, the old house is pulled down.
And, there he builds a new and a more glorious and a more beautiful home for
the occupant.
That's what Paul said when he said, “Brethren,
this I say... flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” While I'm in
this house, I can't have my new house. God has to tear down this old house
first before He can construct my new house, the one made without hands, eternal
in the heavens. Same thing as an old statue, and it's rusty and it's mutilated.
And, they take that old statue and cast it in the fire. There it is melted,
and they recast it.
Only, God does some better thing for us. When you
recast an old statue, it still comes out brass and iron. But, when God shall
recast our statue, it shall come out, oh, immortalized and glorified. We shall
plant in the earth this house of clay, dust and ashes; God shall raise it up
immortalized, glorified: “When this mortal shall have put on immortality and
then this corruptible shall have put on incorruption.”
And, when I see the fallen form of the aged—there
lies my father; here lies my mother; here lies my aged friend—I am not to see
the old house torn down, but I am to see, by faith, the new house, the better
house, made without hands, eternal in the heavens.
“Sorrow not as others who have no hope.” Here is
a youth who has died—my boy, my girl—in the very prime of life, cut down and
taken away.
If the girl had married, taken by her husband to
some far country, and you heard that she was prospering and happy with her
husband, you'd be glad. You'd cry because she's so far away, but you'd be
happy for her. If you had a boy and, in a far land, he was elevated and
honored, given great, great degree, you'd be glad for him, though he's far away.
You know why? Because, someday, you'd say, “We'll
see that child again. He's over there, prospered and blessed and honored and
received and elevated. We'll see him again.” And, you have hope.
And a
child,
A little
child is laid away.
Many
days a stricken mother,
To her
loss unreconciled,
Wept
bitter tears complaining,
“Death
has taken away my child.”
But one
night as she was sleeping,
To her
soul there came a vision,
And she
saw her little daughter
In the
blessed fields of heaven.
All
alone the child was standing
And a
heavy picture holding,
Swift
the mother hastened to her,
And
around her arms enfolding.
“Why so
sad and lonely, Darling?”
As she
stroking soft her hair,
“See the
many merry children
Playing
in the golden fair?
Look,
they're beckoning and calling,
Go and
help them pluck the flowers,
Put
aside the heavy picture,
Play
away the sunny hours.”
From the
tender lips aquiver ,
Fell the
answer on her ears,
“On the
earth my mother's weeping
And this
picture holds her tears.
"Tears
that touch the heavenly blossoms
Spoil
the flower where e’er they fall,
So as
long as Mother's weeping,
I must
stand and catch them all.”
“Wait no
longer,” cried the mother,
“Run and
play, sweet child of mine.
Nevermore
shall tears of sorrow,
Shroud
your happiness of life.”
Like a
bird released from bondage
Sped the
happy child away,
And the
mother woke,
Her
courage strengthened for the lonely day.
“That you sorrow not as others who have no hope.”
We here, but they, with our Lord in glory and, someday, some triumphant day,
some glorious day, at the sound of the trumpet, at the voice of the archangel,
at the command of God, we shall see them and one another again. “Wherefore
comfort one another with these words.”
We have a hope. Oh, what a gospel message! What
a preaching. What a faith. What a commitment. What an invitation. What God
hath done for us.
And, that's the appeal of this sacred and holy hour.
Somebody you, give his heart in faith to Jesus; somebody you, put his life
with the children of God in His church. Would you come? Would you give me
your hand? “Pastor, I give you my hand. I give my heart and faith to
Jesus.” A family of you, put your life with us in the church. Down these
stairwells at the back, at the front, from side to side, while we make this
appeal, while we sing this song, would you come? Would you make it now, while
we stand, and while we sing?