Grosey's Messages

Yesterday I spent some time at the Emergency at Hawkesbury Hospital.  It was an interesting day:

Lots of young men arrived they came in cut and bruised.   They had discovered they were not invincibles, although every young man thinks he is until...Skiing accidents and trail bike accidents.  It was funny to hear the their dads spell out from where they are from.  Wahroongah (I am sure the receptionist knew how to spell it, but just made the dad spell it out.. similarly a young guy from Gymea) .. I was surprised! But sometimes there are events like that and news items that bring us back to our frail mortality.

"A woman, making a phone call on a New York street, was struck in the head and killed yesterday by a flowerpot that was knocked off an eighth floor window ledge by lightning. Amelia Lynch, 28, died after the pot fell on her head, police said." There she is making a phone call and a flowerpot, struck by lightning, falls on her head. Listen to this: "Harold Lee Dunkin was mowing his lawn. His wife and two children were watching. Suddenly, Dunkin grabbed his left side, walked a few steps, staggered, collapsed, and then died. A half-inch piece of wire, no bigger than a pencil lead, had been hurled into his head by the power mower he was using." His death was sudden—cutting the grass and a small piece of wire enters his head. Don;t mow the lawns gentlemen! And, here's one that is strange: "Carlos Bumbus was fishing in the Philippines. Police reported that he opened his mouth to yawn. A fish jumped in and became stuck in his throat." It sounds funny. It wasn't funny to Carlos.   "There is but a step between me and death" (1 Samuel 20:3). We feel so secure in this place, but that little heartbeat there, as somebody said, is "a muffled drum beating a funeral march to the grave." We're going to die.

The world's answer to death is pessimistic

Eccles 2:15 Then I said in my heart, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?" And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. ..20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun,21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun?23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

If death is final,  there is only infinite despair Shakespeare said " Death is a fearful thing, to die and go we know not where." –Claudio, Mark Twain "life is a losing proposition—you'll never get out of it alive?" He was wrong.

If death is final, there is only indescribable sadness:  Boris Yeltzin said to Mikhail Gorbachev   "The people here are weary of pessimism and the share of pessimism is to much for the people to handle. Now they need belief."

We can know that there is more to life than what is ended at death.  The soul is immortal:

There is a sense of reality to the unseen. There is the rationality of the Universe  There is the character of God.

In Jesus we discover that death is a defeated foe.

The Competing Realities For Martha and Mary 

The Delay seemed like Denial  John 11:1-18.  2 miles from Bethany to Jerusalem  a half hour walk. Not Remote. Not

The Doctrine seemed  Distant:  "I know that my brother shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."  unreal and impersonal.

The Realization Of A Present Saviour  I am the resurrection and the life.  CHS "How sweetly fell those words upon her ears–"I am the resurrection and the life"! Not, "I can get resurrection by My prayers," but, "I am, Myself, the resurrection." God's people need to know more of what Jesus is, more of the fullness which it has pleased the Father to place in Him." In Him is Life!!  "I am the resurrection and the life," He indicated to Martha that resurrection and life were not gifts which He must seek, nor even gifts which He must create–but that He, Himself, was the resurrection and the life–these things were wherever He was. He was the Author, Giver and Maintainer of life, and that life was Himself; the Presence of Jesus Christ means life and resurrection. It meant that to Lazarus. If Jesus comes to Lazarus, Lazarus must live!" But what of me and my loved ones? Surely this was true for them, but how can  it be true for me?

John 20. He is risen! And as a Risen Saviour, what is true for Martha and Mary becomes true in our lives.

He awakens us from spiritual death to spiritual life.

He awakens us to hope both now and in eternity.

Now Because:

The Resurrection Defeats Death's Power 

26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

2Cor 5:6We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

"Death reigned" (Romans 5:14). 2 Timothy 1: God,9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

He awakens us to an eternal hope because:

The Resurrection Destroys Death's Pessimism

26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Hebrews 2:9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

1Cor 15: 50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." 55"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A mother and her two children were in the park. They were having a wonderful time until one of those big bees came, and lighted on little sister, and stung the little girl. She began to cry and scream like any child would, and a big swelling place came up there on her arm. And, that bee was still buzzing around and buzzing around, and the little girl was petrified. And, the mother said, "Darling, darling—wait a minute." As she was wiping sister's tears away, she said, "Look darling, look down here on Eleisha's arm." And, right in the middle of that swelling was that bee's stinger. "You know, a bee can only sting once—did you know that?—cause he leaves his stinger. You see that, darling? Sweetheart, he can buzz; he can fight you. But sweetheart, he can't hurt you. He left his sting in your sister—he left his sting in Eleisha." And death may buzz around you, and death may frighten you; but our elder Brother, the Lord Jesus, bears that sting. Thank God. Jesus took the sting out of death.

Cesar Malan wrote :

1 It is not death to die,
To leave this weary road,
And midst the brotherhood on high
To be at home with God.

2 It is not death to close
The eye long dimmed by tears
And wake in glorious repose
To spend eternal years.

3 It is not death to bear
The wrench that sets us free
From dungeon chain, to breathe the air
Of boundless liberty.

4 It is not death to fling
Aside this sinful dust
And rise, on strong, exulting wing
To live among the just.

5 Jesus, Thou Prince of Life,
Thy chosen cannot die:
Like Thee, they conquer in the strife
To reign with Thee on high.

CH Spurgeon  wrote this last appeal: "Listen to that great, "I"–that infinite EGO! This must cover over and swallow up your little ego. "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." What are you? Less than nothing and vanity! But over all springs up that Divine all-sufficient Personality, "I am the resurrection and the life." Take the first two words together and they seem to me to have a wondrous majesty about them–"I AM!" Here is Self-Existence. Life in Himself! Even as the Mediator, the Lord Jesus tells us that it is given Him to have life in Himself, even as the Father has life in Himself (John 5:26). I am fills the yawning mouth of the sepulcher! He that lives and was dead and is alive forevermore, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, declares, "I am the resurrection and the life." If, then, I want to live unto God, I must have Christ–and if I desire to continue to live unto God, I must continue to have Christ! And if I aspire to have that life developed to the utmost fullness of which it is capable, I must find it all in Christ! He has come not only that we may have life, but that we may have it more abundantly.

Faith is the only channel by which we can draw our life from Jesus. "I am the resurrection and the life: He that believes in Me"–that is it. He does not say, "He that loves Me," though love is a bright Grace and very sweet to God. He does not say, "He that serves Me," though everyone that believes in Christ will endeavor to serve Him. But it is not put so. He does not even say, "He that imitates Me," though everyone that believes in Christ must and will imitate Him. No, it is put, "He that believes in Me." Why is that? Why does the Lord so continually make faith to be the only link between Himself and the soul? I take it because faith is a gift which arrogates nothing to itself and has no operation apart from Jesus, to whom it unites us.

"Your faith has saved you!" But faith hastens to ascribe all the glory of salvation to only Jesus! So you see why the Lord selects faith rather than any other Grace–because it is a self-forgetting thing.

Do you have faith?  Are you looking to Jesus to Save you?  It is looking away from ourselves and seeing  only Him as the Saviour!

"But, I feel so weak. I cannot understand. I cannot lay hold of things, I cannot pray. I cannot do anything. All I can do is feebly trust in Jesus." All right! Though you had gone further than that and were so weak as to be dead, yet should you live! Though the weakness had turned to a dire paralysis that left you altogether without strength, yet it is written, "He that believes in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." "Oh, Sir," says one, "I am so unfeeling." Mark you, these generally are the most feeling people in the world. "I am sorry every day because I cannot be sorry for my sin"–that is the way they talk–it is very absurd, but still very real to them. "Oh," cries one, "the earth shook, the sun was darkened, the rocks rent, the very dead came out of their graves at the death of Christ."– 'Of feeling all things show some sign   But this unfeeling heart of mine.'"

Yet if you believe, unfeeling as you are, you live, for if you were gone further than numbness to deadness, yet if you believe in Him you shall live!

Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die."

Trust the Lord Jesus Christ, for He is worthy to be trusted! Throw yourself upon Him and He will carry you in His bosom! Cast your whole weight upon His Atonement! It will bear the strain! Hang on Him as a vessel hangs on the nail and seeks no other support! Depend upon Christ with all your might just as you now are and, as the Lord lives, you shall live! And as Christ reigns, you shall reign over sin! And as Christ comes to Glory, you shall partake of that Glory forever and ever! Amen."