Death — Rolfe Barnard

Lazarus, Death, and the Glory of God

I'm going to read a number of verses, beginning at verse 1 of the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John. Now, a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary, and her sister Martha. It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother, Lazarus, was sick.

Therefore his sister sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that said he to his disciples, Let us go into Judea again.

His disciples said unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought the stone, thee, and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.

But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleepeth, he shall do well, albeit Jesus spake of his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest and sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent ye may believe.

Nevertheless, let us go unto him. We are making a very hurried trip this week. Our preacher boy is coming. It is going to be my privilege, perhaps, to stay with us until we get there on Thursday. It will be my privilege, at the bedside of my mother in flesh, to let her preach to me.

I have had some experiences like that. I have received a letter this week that her father, way out in California, is sick unto death. My mother has been thinking about this business of death this week, about the contrast in the word of God between the death of a believer and the death of an unbeliever.

Physical Death and the Judgment to Come

Our text is the eleventh verse of that chapter, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go, that I may awake him out of his sleep. We are talking about physical death here. We are familiar with the fact that Hebrews 9 tells us, And as it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that judgment, so Christ came once in the end of the age to do some things about men and for men.

I read a letter, a day of appointment to meet, and then one after that. The spirit breath of every human being says the prophet Daniel is in the hands of God. The play on words in the gospel of John at least gives us room to say this, in the sense the world understands death, and will not admit that his people will die.

They will admit they will fall on sleep, but bless God, the Bible from cover to cover, by precept and sign and plain statement, they die or sleep, waiting for them again. I just want to rejoice a little bit, by God's grace, that some of the rejoicing might be a challenge if you need it, or a rebuke if you need it, or encouragement if you need it, if you without hope in this world and the world to come.

The Second Death and the Sleep of Believers

The Bible says that awaiting the unbeliever is the second death. The Bible says that awaiting the believer is sleep. The Bible says that awaiting the unbeliever is the death in your sin. The believer is to fall on sleep.

I wanted to give you five blessed truths that grow out of this scripture, our friend Lazarus I sleep in, and I go to awaken. You may think that I just try and be a little pious, when I said that I'm looking forward to my mother preaching to me, and giving me a word of encouragement, but I am.

You needn't kid me, death is a friend and an enemy, acquainted with its enmity and its friendship. God knows what he's doing, he's so constructed us that we love life, and we dread the cessation of it as we know it here on this earth, but I found that as I've talked with people who've known the Lord a long time, and as they come up in the big numbers of years, fast-forward score, I found that they've got a word for us younger people, that the God who gives grace to others by experience, I know it by experience of others, gives grace to us.

In the Bible, what we call death, and the Lord calls son of his own, there is nothing in death for a child of God. It's wonderful that the scriptures teach us that the Lord has removed the sting of death.

It can't sting you if you're one of his own. Now as a boy we used to try to trap yellow jackets, things like that, and take the sting around, and if you did they would die, they had no other reason for existence, I don't know whether that's so or not, but our Lord did do this for death, in the case of death, for every believing child of God, he took everything out of what we call physical death, that can hurt, that can sting, that can cause us to fear.

A Godly Man's Hope in the Face of Death

The child of God, some years ago, accepted a call to come to Winston-Salem, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Piedmont School as an evangelist part-time teacher. Left Tulsa, drove down to Okmulgee, Oklahoma, 40 miles away, and spent the night with Mr. and Mrs. R .A. Bazell.

That name means nothing to you, but my wife's a half-orphan, when she was about two and a half to three. Her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle. She came to know them as mother and father, even though her father, far away, was still alive and still living.

In the first congregation I ever served as under-shepherd, he was a godly man, he was the type of fellow that usually did the praying for the congregation. God, when I say he had what the old-timers said, unction in prayer.

God had given him a gift that doesn't give many. Like we ask somebody to lead us in prayer, we try to pray with you. He was able to lift us up and bring us into the attitude of prayer at unction. He led into the family, he followed us all over America in the field of evangelism with his prayer.

He retired with a terribly bad heart condition. Bought a little two-and-a-half-acre oak mulberry. We went by to see him and stay all night. The next morning before we got in the car to head out for Tulsa, nine or ten years ago now, something like that, he said, Rob, let's take a little walk.

I regarded him almost as a father because my father's been gone many, many years. He regarded me as a son. They never had blood children of their own. He kept a cow and a calf. You boys quit cutting down and listen to the priest.

He said, Rob, I want to have a little talk with you. He said, I'll never see you again. He said, you're all going away off into North Carolina. He said, this old ticker of mine is going to tick first last time just any day.

He said, you'll be busy. He said, I'll be gone from this earth before you get back. And he said, I just want to talk to you a little bit. Tell you how I loved you. Pray for you. Followed you. How much you've come to mean to me.

We had a good time. And I said, Uncle. Oh, he's calling him Uncle. I said, tell me, how is it with your old bad principle to use and it is to most of us. We just can't figure out. People die, but not us.

You just can't sit down and think about your own death to save your life. It just can't do it. Now, other people. We pass cemeteries and we know that this is a dying world, but not for ourselves. Forget what that humble child of God said, son.

He said, I look forward to it. He said, the Lord's been good to me. I don't think he'd just be in fire. Silence is bleeding to get that old lot of this foolishness gone. He said, Rob, anxious to see my Lord.

The Unbeliever's Fearful End

It's a fearful. If the Bible speaks truly and it does, death introduces the unbeliever to that fearful place of death. Healing of men. For men because. Highest gain. Highest gain. Against son, son against father of God's people.

Very few of you, if any, can escape that. Very few of you, if any, do not have. Years of the grace. Contradiction of sinners. Preached a lot in the north. I think it's getting about that bad in the south.

Years ago, went to hold my first meeting. New York City. I was utterly amazed at the crowds. They just had to seat certain people at night. Bastards say, now you folks, you'll not come back tomorrow night.

Other people come. Give them a seat. I was amazed at the young people. There by the multiplied hundreds. Went down to the drugstore after service one night. And I said to some of the young people. I said, so many of you flock out to the service.

One quiet, spoken, fine looking young man said, Brother Barnard. In New York City is just two places to go. To God's house or to hell. I don't see much of it. Much difference. Winston-Salem and New York City.

I remember the first time I held a meeting in Detroit, Michigan. The late, the automobile city. I began to get acquainted with humble men who worked in the factories. They began to tell me something of what was up against.

It was in the days when communism was threatening to take over the labor organizations. Doing its best. In the days of the Black Legion. In the days when they'd break your arm. Do anything to make you join up.

Those godly men told me that the only way a Christian man could pursue his trade in a factory was to take a Bible along with him. Said, you'll need it in the factory. He said, when the communists come and spit at you and curse you.

He said, what they want you to answer them back. He said, we found the only thing that keeps us going is when they start that. We reach over and get our testament. Bury our face in it. The contradiction of sinners.

Death as Victory for the Believer

This old ungodly world. He, father believer, come relieved from that. Used to tell of T .T. Martin. He never had but two kinds of beatings. Down way back yonder. And the first service he'd outline his program of the gospel.

Declare war. This is it, he would say. Left town. Multitudes blessed. Carry him down like a king to the train. Wave their handkerchiefs at him. Sing, hold the fort for I'm coming. Leave a town to police escort.

Keep their enraged church people from taking his life. Many a time, brother Mule, said T .T. Martin, make the train by the grace of God and the skin of his teeth. Said, whatever it was, blessing or cursing, old T .T. Martin, get on that train, stand on the steps.

While the people sang to him, he'd wave his handkerchief to enemies or friends. And sing on Jordan's stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.

T .T. Martin came to his death on the second floor of the Baptist Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. He used to owe me rock. He said nothing ever happened in Mississippi like that. He said it took the old man about a half a day to die.

He said every grub woman, every doctor, every intern, every nurse, every patient that could walk or crawl or be carried crowded up on that old second floor. T .T. Martin died. He said his thin piercing voice, I had the honor of hearing the old man.

His thin piercing voice carried through the corridors of that old hospital. As old T .T. Martin died singing, I am bound from this religious world that knows not holiness of life or Christ alive. In this world when men's thoughts are upon everything else except God and the things of eternity, I sit down for a minute and face questions.

The Bible says for the believer, death is asleep, 25, 26. In you the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God. David is the body of the church house where my sister stood up.

Half years, the casket out, put it in the hearse and we followed it to a cemetery. Heard the casket, let us stay, didn't want to hear from the caskets of the body. In the morning that afternoon, wife and I slipped away, went out to the cemetery.

It was beginning to wilt under the sun. As that little mound covered with flowers, we knelt on either side. Something about the feminine sex, Afrahim's truth that we old men don't know about. Girl bride, bereft mother, who's hidden here with the Lord.

She's with the Lord. So dear one, you said to our friend Lazarus, sleep it and I go to wake it. The unbeliever, he dies to be raised. Many doctrines and many beliefs and many everything except many hearts.

For the believer, it's the body for the duties of the next day. Sometime just for my own heart's blessing, to turn over to the 22nd chapter of the Revelation and saying just read it. At verse 1, and he showed me a pure river of water of life proceeding out of the throne in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life bear 12 manner fruits and yielded her fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations and there shall be no more curse.

Seeing the Face of God

Of God and of the Lamb shall be in it and his servants shall serve him. Let his servants, yeah, I got a little taste of it. Bless the Lord that they'll spend eternity doing two things. First, serving him and second, beholding him.

Verse 4, and they shall see his face. For the believer, it's like sleep for the body. Sleep at night and you're all ready to go the next day. And that's what death is for the believer. Just to cure the servant.

In the sea, I preached my own father's funeral service. Sang a solo at the service of his request. Sang the pearly white city. This is Ty preaching my father's funeral. Singing solo. I tell you how I had such a good time.

Trying to get from Fort Worth, Texas to Alabama. Mother's home about midnight. Greeted the loved ones who were there. Come with me in. She led me. I went in. She shut the door and left me there. In the corner was a casket and I went over.

First thing I saw was the lock of cold black hair that always curled here. And then I stood there in amazement much in the Old Testament about the Shekinah, the glory of the Lord. Read about the people when my Lord was here on earth.

That enabled him to see God. When they saw somebody look just like a man, an only man, they beheld his glory. They beheld his glory. Said, that's God. And that glory, that glory on the face. I see it now.

I didn't get to go. I wished a million times we could have borrowed some more money enough for her to go. We were struggling and should have seen it. Why a man couldn't preach enough sermon and prove enough facts.

If he had ten million years to do it, what I saw in my dad. After a while when I could get mother along, I said, mother, took place. She said, what do you mean, son? I said, you know, dad's face. The undertaker couldn't take it out.

The draining of the blood couldn't take it out. It was embalming. The glory of God settled on his countenance. She said, son, I knew you was going to ask me. She said, it happened after this wise. An hour before dad went on, began to call the children in one by one.

And he gave them a special blessing, greeting like old Jacob did his boy. Said to cause you as a preacher boy. He saved you for the last and you weren't there. But all this, my older brother, and he and my dad couldn't see with these eyes.

Good. His face was all swelled up. He never knew the difference. My brother took my place. Well, they said that said, Ralph, my preacher boy, never got to hear you preach. Then he made his request about the singer to this funeral.

Then he said, Ralph, be true to the. And then he dismissed me. And mother said, after he told all the children goodbye, everybody said that just the two of us were left alone. Said we made love like we did when we were in court.

The great glory of God. And said after a while, dad still in this world, made a little trip into the next one, said that look, that shine came on his face. Dad began to say, Mother, it's so beautiful.

It's so beautiful. And mother said, what dad? Oh, he said, what dad? But all he'd say, oh, it's spreading glory of God. You know what was different? You know what was? He saw his face. That song, We'll Not Have to Cross the Jordan Alone, wasn't just a song, it's so.

That promise, I'll never leave you, no, never, no, never leave you, not forsake you, it's so. He saw his face. And just to see his face, is for the glory of him who shall lighten the new Jerusalem so that need no light thereby.

Settled on my touch, and that's the way it'll be, in glory. Just well, dear folks, sure well. They had the casket open, time or two I folded a little bit, my little message, and I looked down, see that glory, see that glory.

Serving Christ Through Death and Eternity

The rest of you, listen to me, listen to me. The believer will see his face, see his face, see his face, and will serve him, because that's all his life is, this. We all know the song. You've heard me tell it, I'll tell it again, it's a clove.

Pilgrim's Progress, if you've never read it, please do so. Faithful finally makes it, gets up to the gates and gains entrance. He's had a pretty long journey. He's met lots of disappointments, a lot of encouragement, he makes it.

As soon as he got inside, he heard such singing he'd never heard in all his life. He said it was wonderful. He said he looked and there was the Choir of Glory. He said he began to walk towards that great heavenly choir.

The closer he got to it, the more beautiful the singing was. He said he spied an empty seat in the Choir of Glory. He said he kept walking, pretty soon he could see some letters written on the seat. He wondered what the letters were, and he kept walking.

Pretty soon he could see it was the letters of somebody's name. And he kept walking and he saw that it was his name. And he said, I win! He and I served at the church at Alvord, Texas while I was going to Southwestern Seminary trying to do something.

The old man there was the town rake. He showed the result of his life of sin in his face and his countenance everywhere. He never missed a service. He heard me preach. About every time I preached, we'd have special meetings.

He'd be right there. He'd come to see me about every weekend. We'd drive out from school to minister. In the summertime, he'd come to see me often. He'd sit down and listen to me preach. He believed everything I preached.

He used to come and say, Boy, preach on. The preach harder than you ever did before. He said, I know what I'm talking about. He said, No hope for me. Never could get him to change his tune. He died in that shape.

He said, I'll tell you one thing you can tell people. There comes a time even in this life when the pleasures of sin turn into the torments of hell. If there's earth in this life, think what hell will be if that which no longer tastes good is the only occupation of people throughout eternity.

There's some excuse, I guess, for sinning in the flush of youth or the prime of manhood or womanhood. Some pleasure, the Bible says there is, but there's none even for you when you get old in this life.

And the only prospect the unbeliever has is eternity. Doing that which he himself hates from which he'll never be delivered. It'd pay you, my friend, to consider how you shall die. There's just two ways to die.

Dying in Sin or Dying in Christ

Die in your sins. In your sins. Or to die in the Lord Jesus Christ. To sing a chorus in the prime of a life when we kids were coming up. I guess it was her favorite. She'd be going about the church singing.

I think most of the time she perhaps wasn't conscious she was singing. She'd sing that old, old song you heard many times ago, something like this. I'm going home, going home, going home, like you are, right to the Lord.

In the dying hour, you believe that if you die for my old mother, that's fine. Let's just let that devil see it. Way up high. How many of you, with eyes closed and heads bowed, not ready, not willing, you wouldn't want to die in the shape you're in tonight, your honest side.

If you had any idea you were facing death, to stand right in the face, you'd be scared. You're not ready. You don't know the Lord. Your sins are not under the bed. Your sins are not under the bed. How many of you, with heads bowed and eyes closed, honest enough to tell me that tonight?

Just lift your hand. I don't want to say it. The invitation's come to him. It means look to him. Look away from yourself. Listen to him. Make absolute surrender to him. I can't tell you what those things mean.

It's there. You'll have to. People who want to know him can know him. We can help you after the service. Better go in the back door if you walk up and say, Preacher, I'm not ready to leave here tonight.

Now, that door into the darkness of the night might go out to the darkness of the eternal night. We could pray with you, instruct you, help you. We'd be delighted to. We can't save you, but we are interested in you.

Remember our special need in the offering tonight. You visit with us. Please do not hurry out. Let our people get acquainted with you. Tell you they're glad you came to visit us. We invite you to come as the Lord leads you.

Our Father, he has a man not ready to die. He over them is in reach of his faith as he could. Oh, God, that he lay hold on the Lord Jesus Christ and him only. It is our prayer for those here who are on their road to a Christless, grave and eternal hell.

At the time we were in that shape, we pray thy continued mercy upon them. Keep them out of hell, Lord. Dig around them by thy wonderful mercy and grace. We ask it in the name of him who took this sting out of death.

For everyone who's able to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our prayer in his blessed name. Amen. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available free and for sale in audio, video, and printed formats.

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The Regulative Principle of Worship

And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart.

From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God.

For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground.

It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears.

Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important.

When he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.