|
These
are a few quotes from the two sermons. I have taken the liberty to
personalize them a little. The original unaltered and unabridged
messages are available from each link. The sermons are worth
reading (these quotes are not enough!); they have strengthened us in a
tough time.
From Sermon #1:
The point for us is that even though we human beings
are under the penalty of everlasting judgment and death because of the
fall of our race into sin and the sinful nature that we all have,
nevertheless God only executes this judgment on those who have the
natural capacity to see his glory and understand his will, and refuse to
embrace it as their treasure.
Infants like Timothy David, I believe, do not yet
have that capacity; and therefore, in God’s inscrutable way, he has
brought Timothy under the forgiving blood of his Son.
Romans 14:8: “If we live,
we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.”
So Timothy died to the Lord. For
her that couldn’t mean, as it can for us, that he consciously
glorified the Lord by trusting and treasuring the Lord in his dying.
But it could mean, and did mean, that he died for the Lord’s
sake. IN his dying
something was experienced from the Lord which would otherwise not have
been experienced, and which causes us to thank the Lord and trust the
Lord and love the Lord more because of it. He did not die in vain.
He died to the Lord—his dying had to do with the Lord.
It was for the Lord’s sake.
Timothy belongs to the Lord first and not to us.
He died and lived again that he might own him and be his Lord.
And he is.
We see Timothy’s life as a vapor.
James says our lives are a vapor.
Because when measured against eternity—where we will all
live—the difference between her life and ours is infinitesimal.
I would only add:
life is short—two minutes, twelve hours, two years, 50
years—it’s short. And
eternity is long. Let’s
get ready. Christ died and rose again that he might be Lord of the dead
and the living—forever. Let’s
trust him. And use our days
for his glory.
From Sermon
#2:
Nor am I going to say that being sure that Timothy is safe and
uncondemned is the most important thing to be sure of.
The most important thing to be sure of is that that God is good
and trustworthy.
The point [of Romans 1:18-21] is this: to be held
accountable at the judgment you need two things: 1) available knowledge
of the glory of God you should have adored and thanked; 2) the physical
capacity to know it, to perceive it.
Paul implies that if this knowledge were really not
available then there really would be an "excuse" at the
judgment. Infants who do
not reach the age of accountability do not have this connection with the
knowledge that makes accountable. Therefore
they have an excuse and God in his justice will find a way to absolve
them of their depravity.
It seems to me that the most natural guess would be
that babies will grow up in the kingdom (either immediately, or over
time) and will by God's grace come to faith so that their justification
is by faith along just like ours.
The three main points of George Mueller's funeral
text when his wife Mary died of rheumatic fever in 1860 were:
The Lord was good, and did
good, in giving her to me.
The Lord was good and did
good, in so long leaving her to me.
The Lord was good and did
good, in taking her from me. |
