Death
Be not proud
Death
Be not
proud
The phrase
Death be not proud
is
from the first line of a
sonnet
Written by 16th century poet and
English cleric
Who was made Dean of st. Paul's Cathedral in London?
Sir John done
He employs the poetic device of
irony and
personification
To illustrate to people
that are afraid of death of
The truism that death is
merely a journey
It is a short rest
Before reaching the afterlife
So John done talks to death as if it were a person
Shaming death for being proud of itself
Done refers to death brothers and sisters as an apostrophe
Not the mark of punctuation. That's an apostrophe
but apostrophe as a figure of speech
The word apostrophe
Comes from the ancient Greek and literally means turning away
It involves the speaker or the writer
addressing an inanimate
abject or an abstract idea
By turning its but his or her back on what they are talking about as if what they are speaking of is an
Abstraction or does not really exist a
Modern-day preacher poet
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Put death in bolder relief
When he said death is not a period which ends this great sentence of life
But rather a comma which punctuates it for more lofty significance
Dr. King said death is not a blind alley
Which leads into a state of nothingness?
But rather an open door
Which leads to life eternal?
Robert Ingersoll
Who was not a believer said life is a narrow veil
between the barren peaks of two eternities
birth and
death
Dr. Gardner see Taylor who went to be with the Lord at the age of 96
Close the chasm that Ingersoll could not span
Dr. W. Franklin Richardson made mention to me that when dr. Taylor
learned of the death of dr. TJ Jimison and other great pulpit luminaries
Dr. Taylor's response was always
good for him
Good for him
Apparently we Christians many of us have a problem with death
We use many
euphemisms
to sanitize and
disinfect
This matter called death
We say so and so has expired
Or she or she has passed away
If you from Louisiana they kicked the bucket
Or you from Texas or Oklahoma they've gone to the Ponderosa
Or if you're from California, they move to the great beyond
And if you're in my family, you never talk about death you say if something happens to me
My sister says that all the time if something happened to me
I say you mean if you're getting a car wreck or if you break your leg that's something happening to you
What do you what are you really talking about? She said well if something happened to me
This is what I want to happen. I said no no no let's talk about this something happening to you
And I want to say to do those of us here this morning who call it kicking the bucket or passing on or expired or
Going to the Ponderosa or going to the great beyond or something happened to you
Let me give you an arresting statistic
If the Lord Jesus delays his coming
One out of every one of us in here this morning is going to die
Put it in your phone
Put it on your day planner
Put it on your schedule. You might you might cancel your beauty shop appointment
You might cancel your nail appointment. You might cancel your massage. You might cancel your eye doctor
You might cancel your appointment with your which your which your gardenic colleges
But put this on your schedule if Jesus does not come soon
You and I are going to die
I don't care how pretty you are
I don't care how fine you are okay. How young you are how old you are all of us have an appointment
With death
But for the Christian death is not the grim Reaper
For the child of God death is transportation
Death carries us from one side to the other side. Listen, I
Could fall asleep tonight and not wake up in the morning on this side
I'm going to wake up in the morning either on this side
Or on the other side because to be absent from the body. I
Wish I had a vibrator
Is to be present with the Lord
we know
That if this earthly house I
Wish I had two or three more witnesses of this tabernacle is
dissolved
We have another building a
House
Not made with hands
But eternal in the heaven we used to sing it when I was a boy there's a leak in this old building
and
My soul
Has got to move
Let me see if I can help somebody this morning
All you have
All I have
is a lease agreement
This this house
this body
That I'm living in that you are living in all you have is a lease agreement
and
One day the landlord
Is going to come and say to you that your lease is up
And it would be tragic to have to move with no forwarding address
When this life is over I
Wish I had a believer here when I'm through struggling down here
I have another place to go I have a house not made with hands
Because I am a child of God
Apparently
Some of the Corinthians had come to doubt the resurrection
and the apostle devotes an entire chapter
58 verses
To reassure them and us that the resurrection of Jesus is a real event and
His resurrection from the dead can give us victory in our day-to-day life
Victory over what brother pastor
We Christians have victory over death
Let me let me say something to us that hopefully you're gonna go on talking about
Fear of death is heathenism
not Christianity
Because in the Old Testament death was called the king of terror
But in the New Testament death is called sleep
That's why when I'm gone
They're not bringing me to a graveyard because that's for dead people
I'm going to a cemetery
Because the very word cemetery means sleeping place
When I die I'm just falling asleep. I
Wish I had some help to preach it
I'm not dead. I'm sleeping
I'm sleeping in that UK wake me up
But when the trumpet sound
The dead in Christ
Shall be raised first. I wish I had some help to preach it and those of us who are alive and remain
Shall be caught up together to meet them in the air. We shall be raptured caught up
change in
the twinkling of an eye
I
The scripture says two will be sleeping in a bed
One will disappear and one will remain
Two will be working in a field
One will disappear and
One will remain
I like talking about the two people in scripture who did not taste death
One was Elijah
caught up in a chariot of fire
But the one I really like talking about is Enoch. I
Need two or three more Bible reading
The Bible says Enoch
Walk with God
And he was not
Because God took it
One day Enoch and God was just walking and talking and and having a good time like they did every day and
Then God said since you're closer to where I lived into where you live
Won't you just come on and go with me
And God took it
One day I just want to be
took it I
Know that ain't good English, but that's good Baptist talk. I
Want to just be took it one day? I want to just be doing what I'm doing and the law just took me
I'm going home because I want to be closer to where he lives
in my father's house a
Many
Many mansion
If it were not so I
Would have told you
I go
That's Jesus talking now
To prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you
I'm gonna come again
And receive you under myself that where I am
There you will be also
Christ
Overcame death and
Has conquered the grave by his resurrection and
brought life and
mentality to light by the gospel
Paul said I delivered under you
First that which I have also received
How he was crucified and died one Friday
According to the scriptures
How he was buried
According to the scriptures how he rose on the third day
According to the scriptures and Paul said he called me an apostle born
out of due time
To preach to you
the resurrection I
Am not even qualified. He says to be called an apostle
Because I persecuted the church of God
Here it is, but by the grace of God I
Am
What I am and everybody here who's been saved this morning don't brag on how moral you are
Don't brag on how pious and righteous and scripture and illiterate you are
Because all it takes is a moment and any one of us can fall in the sin, but by the grace of God
I
am
What I
Don't don't you just don't you just want to scream
When you talk to these people who who answer their phone praise the Lord
I
I'm blessed and highly favored
I'm too blessed to be stressed and they got a fish on their bumper
And they're always listening to his gospel music and and you can't raise your voice around them because
They're halo might fall off
And and and that's why they cover themselves up so tight because their wings might be exposed
That that's got to be a miserable confining
Cold lifeless dead kind of life
Because you can't appreciate grace
until you've been a liar
You can't appreciate grace until you've seen so wickedly
That the Lord had to cover you with his blood and
When you come here on Sunday morning, you ain't shouting because you got it right all the week long last week
You come here shouting cuz you messed up, but by the grace of God I
Am
What I am I
Should have been dead I
Deserve to be dead
But mercy grace
Surely
Goodness
And mercy
Shall follow me
All the days of my life. I wish I had some noise right here
Yeah
Though I walk
Through the valley of the shadow of death
I fear no evil cuz I got somebody with
Your rod and your staff
They comfort me
He prepared the table before
In the presence of my enemies
He anoints my head because listen, I don't know who my enemies are
They look like my friends
They talk like my friends
They laugh and grin in my face like my friends, but I don't know who my head. That's why I need a shepherd
Who can prepare a table before me
in
The presence of my enemies
And then he anoints my head with oil
So that my cup is
Running over I
Need a I need a witness here
Who get happy when it ain't Sunday? You
Don't even have to be in church
You you you you you you just start thinking about
How many doors he's open
How many tears he's dry
How many ways he's made
How much he led you around that you could have fallen into but he kept you
He never left you
And it's just Wednesday and you start shouting about his goodness. Let me let me let me let me testify before I move on
Sometime when I when I when I turn the ignition in my car
I
Think about the little the little Buick century I used to have
That that they knew it was me coming down the street
Because it smoked so much
They thought I was the mosquito man spraying for mosquito
And then I had to park it where I didn't have to back up
Because my transmission was gone
And
Then look like it had a mind of its own if I left it idling it just take off by itself
And I had to dive in the drivers of winter
To stop it but look where I
Had a little black and white 13 inch television
With some foreign paper on the on the antenna. I wish I had somebody to help me
And my knob was broke so I had to get a pair of pliers I
Couldn't afford cable so I just had three channels, but look where the Lord I
Need one or two more witnesses here who can remember all you had was one pass shoes
All you had was one good suit of clothes
But now you open your closet and got to make up your mind what you're gonna put
down through the years
The last bit good to me
I've got the victory over death
I've got the victory in verse 56 over deception
The sting of death is sin and
The strength or the power of sin is the law
And and when you look at it
And and when you look at sin and the law
It terrifies you
Because you know that because of your sin and
Because you can't keep the law
You're hopeless
But if in this life only
We have hope we are among all men
Most miserable
Sin is the reason Jesus came into work
He lived and he died on the cross and
It is his death that delivers us from our sins because he paid the price for sin
With his own blood
And if the power of death arises from sin
Then the only way it can be done away is
by the expiation and
Forgiveness of sin and sin must be atoned for if death is to be destroyed
Sin gave death a sting and
The sting of death
pierces
pains and
Poisons
The power of sin pierces
The guilt of sin is painful and
The pollution and defilement of sin is poison
But Jesus took the sting
I was trying to save this till I got to the end of the sermon
I shared it with the brothers in the back in our consecration
my daughter
Victoria is afraid of anything that moves or crawls. That's not a person
She's scared of spiders she's scared of roaches
Was bees
Worms anything that squirms moves crawls does not a human
She's afraid of it
As bad as she try to think she is
She'll call me at 10 30 at night to come get a dead roach out of her house. I
Said Victoria is dead. Oh dad. I
Got to get up out of my house and go get a dead roach
She's been that way all of her life when she was a small child about four maybe five years old
We were sitting outside and a wasp came around and
She jumped in my neck and almost squeezed my eyes out of the socket
And I said what's what's the matter? She said dad is a wasp. It's a wasp
And I saw the was flying around and I grabbed it
And it stung me in my hand
And when I opened my hand I
showed her the stinger and
I said it can't bother you now
Because the stinger is
In my hand
One Friday
On a hill called Calvary
Jesus took the sting out of death and
Said oh death
Where is your sting?
grave
Where's your victory? You want to know where the sting of death is Jesus just got to open his hand
He died
Didn't he die and when he died he took the sting out of death and
Robbed the grave of its victory
And so I've got the victory over death I've got the victory
Over deception
Never the next time you go to the funeral of a Christian that's deception you look in there
They fooling you they ain't dead
They just sleep
And one of these days
You're gonna read in the Houston Chronicle in the obituary column
Yeah, the Terry Anderson is dead
That's a misprint
That's deception I'll be more live then
Than I've ever been before I
Will drop this metal of flesh
step out of the narrow
Circumstitions of time and into the
Elimitable experiences of eternity when life's fitful fever is ended I will not be dead
I'm going to sleep
You can't get mad with a man who's worked all day who wants some sleep
Somebody help me talk here
When I've borne my burdens in the heat of the day when my life is ended I want to go to sleep
If you miss me
From singing down here and you can't find me nowhere
Come up to bright glory
I'll be singing up there
I have victory over death. I
Have victory over deception
But I have victory also finally over damnation
It's right here in the text but
Thanks be to God
Who just gives us
Victory
Through our Lord Jesus Christ we don't we don't deserve it
We didn't do anything to earn it
We will never be good enough to merit it
Because of the death of Christ and I believe in his finished work on the cross he just gives us
the victory
And when somebody gives you something that you don't deserve you ought to have sense enough
To just say thank you I
Know what I deserve
But thank you for your grace I
Know what I got coming to me
But thank you for your grace I
Know what should have happened to me
But thank you for your grace
Do you know what could have happened to you between last Sunday and this one?
Somebody ought to help me preach
You don't know how many cars God slowed down to keep from running into you
You don't know what was going on while you were sleeping outside your house
I know you had your alarm system on and I know you got burglar balls
But but but God kept you
You slept soundly last night
Because the death angel was flying over the city of Houston
But your house was covered
Not not not by a burglar system
But covered by the blood of Christ I
Wish I had a believer here
Because some people better by nature than we are
I did not wake up this morning
but God woke us up and
Then God got us to his house
safely on the interstate and
Then brought us to our particular seat in the sanctuary
You could have dropped dead as soon as you got out of your car
Or you could have walked in this church and died in the vestibule
Or you could have sit down in your pew
spoke to somebody
Close your eyes and never wake up again
God's just been good to us
Every move I make
Every step I take
Is by the goodness and the mercy of God Almighty
You need to tell some super saint next to you
Who's trying to act all holy and they they haven't opened their mouth since they've been in the sanctuary
They've never sung any of the songs that we sang this morning
They didn't clap they didn't move from side to side
They didn't give God glory. They didn't put their head down during devotion
You need to let them know that it was not for God's goodness
If it were not for God's
mercy
If it were not for the fact that he looked beyond my faults and
saw my needs
God's been good to me. I
Need one or two more believers to help me close here. I know you were waiting for me to get to verse number 58
You probably thought I forgot about verse number 58, but I didn't forget about verse number 58
There's a whole lot of shouting in verse 58
But you got to read verse 50 on down
Before you can shout about verse number 58
Because in verse number 50 it starts out by behold 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 for the trumpet of God shall
sound and when this model has put on
immortality and when this corruptible has put on in corruption
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written
Death has been swallowed up in
victory
Oh death
Where is your sting?
Oh grave
Where is your victory?
The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law
But thanks be to God who gives us the victory
Through our Lord Jesus Christ
Here it comes therefore
Whenever you see the word therefore you ought to want to know what it's there for
Here is what it's there for
You got to read on up into chapter 15
If there be no resurrection of the dead
Then we have died in vain
Our faith is in vain
Our preaching is in vain
And we are among all men
most miserable
But thank you Jesus
He died
on a hill called Calvary and his death was sufficient
For God getting a ransom for our sins
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
What can make me
Hold again
Nothing
But the blood of Jesus
I need a believer here this morning
Who know what the word therefore is therefore
Therefore my beloved brethren
Be steadfast
That word steadfast means just be seated
Unmovable
That word unmovable just means be firm
Always abounding in the work of the Lord
For as much as you know
That your labor is not in vain
In the Lord
You're gonna help me close this won't you?
Sometime is hard to be Christian
Sometime it's difficult when the road is rough and the going gets tough and it looks like everybody's getting ahead of you and
Everybody's doing better than you are doing and
Everybody's life seems to be on a keel that your life is not on
You look at them on Facebook and they look so good and look like life is just going their way
And then you look at them on tiktok and it looked like they're just having such a good time
But that's one day out of
365 days
You don't know how much hell they've had those other day
You don't know how mean they've been those other days
You don't know how ugly life has been for them those other days, but you are the thank God
that you have life and
And you have life more abundantly you are the thank God you have peace
That surpasses all
understanding you are the thank God that you have joy
That no money can purchase
You might not live where they live
You might not drive what they drive, but when it's all over
We've got to stand before the same judgment seat
We've got to meet the same God and if you live right
You shall receive your reward
If you trust God
You'll make a way out of no way. I need a believer here right now. I
Need a serious Christian right now
Who's had some good days and?
Some bad days
You've had some sunshine today
You've had some rainy days
You've had some warm days
You've had some cold days
You've had some happy days
You've had some days of depression
But through it all
God kept you
through it all
God made a way for you
through it all
God's been good to you if you don't mind testifying
If you don't mind being a witness
Make some signs
That God has made a way for you
Why don't you make a sign?
That God has shown up
Right when you needed it
Why don't you make some sign that God turned it around?
Just in the nick of time
Try to dis a
commonplace
all kinds of diseases
People are slipping away
The economy is down
People can't get enough pay
But ask for me
Ask for me
All I can say is thank you Lord
for all
You've done for me it could have been me
I've done
with no food
and no clothes
All left alone without a friend
Just another number
with a tragic end
But you didn't see fit
To let none of these things be
I'm saved by your power and you keep on
You keep on
Keeping me
Thank you
No, he's alright
Excuse me here
There's some folk in here like me
who've crossed over 50 years old
and the longest end of the rope
is behind you now
and what you're looking forward to
is that great getting up on
Trials dark
on the ever a hand
and we cannot
understand
all the ways
that God will lead us
to that blessed
promised land
but he'll guide us
with his eye
we'll follow
till we die
we'll understand it
better
by