Sermon
# 196 Series: Isaiah
Title: THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Text: Isaiah 57:1-2
Subject: The Blessedness of a
Believer’s Death
Date:
Sunday Evening – November 20, 1994
Tape
# Q-67
Introduction:
I
want to talk to you tonight about death, particularly, about The Death of The Righteous. Balaam
cried, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like
his!” (Num. 23:10).
Proposition:
Forever
blessed are those men and women who live and die in righteousness!
Read
the first two verses of Isaiah 57 with me. Now just hold your place there for a few
minutes, while I talk plainly to you about death. Then we will look at the message contained in these two verses.
1. You and I are dying! We are all eternity bound sinners with immortal
souls’ and we are dying. “Dying thou
shalt die!” “The wages of sin is
death.”
2. For you who are without
Christ, death is the beginning of infinite, indescribable, eternal woe!
B. But for the believer things
are different – For the believer death is not something to be dreaded with fear, but
anticipated with hope.
For the believer death might be compared to a
friendly visit from the Lord. As a man
walks in his garden and plucks a beautiful flower in full bloom to stick it in
his lapel, so the Lord God comes into his garden, gathers his lilies with
delightful smile and carries them in his bosom up to glory. The Believer Lives In: FAITH – HOPE – RIGHTEOUSNESS – PEACE
“O
what a burst of joy, what a scene of glory opens to the ravished view, and
beams on the triumphant soul of a saint in the moment of departure! The deathbed of a Christian is the anti-chamber
of heaven, and the very suburbs of the New Jerusalem.” – Toplady
Pause
for a moment and try to imagine what it will be like to enter
heaven1 (I Cor. 2:9).
Divisions:
Now,
let’s look at Isaiah 57:1-2. I want to
show you four things in these two verses.
I. The Character of God’s Saints
– “Righteous”
and “Merciful” are the words that are used here to describe believers.
A. Believers are people who have
been made righteous by God’s grace.
B. God’s saints in this world,
having experienced mercy, are merciful.
II. The Providence of God in The
Death of His Saints – “The righteousness perisheth.”
Not eternally! He may, by reason of temptation and sin, fear that he shall perish.
He may sometimes say, “My strength and my hope have
perished before the Lord.” And his peace and comfort may perish for a time. But the righteous cannot
perish everlastingly! All who believe on Christ, being washed in his blood, robed in his righteousness, and sealed by his Spirit, have
everlasting life and shall never perish!
Isaiah is here talking only about the death of the
body. This body of flesh must perish. But the righteous can never perish. And this perishing of the righteous is an
act of God’s wise and good providence (Eccles. 7:15).
“The
merciful man is taken away” – gathered to heaven by the hand of God.
A. God has ordained the time of my death.
B. God has ordained the place of my death.
C. God has ordained the instrument of my death.
And
it really is of no concern to me when, where, or how I die. That is entirely up to my Master. Righteousness delivers us from
the sting of death, but not from the stroke of death.
NOTE: In his providence, God often
removes the righteous and leaves the wicked.
Fruitful trees are cut down in death, but barren trees are left to
cumber the ground. Merciful men are
often taken away by the hand of malicious men, who are left to work havoc in
the earth. (Illus: God took Abel by Cain’s hands and left Cain to live a
cursed life!)
III. The Foolishness of Those Who
Disregard The Deaths of Others.
“No man layeth it to heart…None
considering!”
Very
few value the lives of God’s saints.
When they are taken, few look upon it as a public loss, fewer still take
notice of it as a public warning.
A. Wise men look upon the death
of another as a reminder of the certainty of his own death.
B. But when God’s saints are
taken out of this world, we are especially wise to lay that to heart.
1. When the righteous perish, their influence
also perishes.
2. When the merciful are gone, only the
malicious are left.
3. If the righteous and the merciful die, so
too shall the unrighteous and the unmerciful!
IV. The Blessedness of The
Righteous When They Die (v. 2).
A. They are taken away from the
evil to come.
1. This is done in compassion to
them.
NOTE: When the flood was coming. God put his elect into the ark.
When he rained fire on
Sodom, he snatched Lot out of the city!
2. This is an act of judgment
upon the world.
When those who stand in the gap to hold back the flood of God’s wrath are taken away, the flood will soon come. “It is a sign that God intends war when he calls home his ambassadors.” (M. Henry).
B. “He shall enter into peace!”
We walk in peace now (Rom.
5:1; Phil.
21:12). And when we leave this world,
we shall enter into a world of peace.
1. Heaven is a world of peaceful
associates.
· The God of Peace.
2. Heaven is a world where there
is nothing contrary to peace.
· No Sin Within.
3. Heaven is a world full of
everything that is conducive to peace.
· Infinite Riches of Grace and Glory!
4. As soon as we step out of this
world of strife we will enter into Christ’s world of peace!
C. Look at the next line – “They shall rest in their beds.”
When our souls have entered into heaven’s world of peace, these bodies of flesh shall rest in hope of the resurrection in the bed of the earth, in the grave.
D. “Each one walking in his
uprightness.”
· Never to Sin Again!
Application: Are You Prepared to Die?
Illus: The Robin’s Eggs