Episode Transcript
Proverbs chapter 10, God willing, we'll be expounding verse 7 tonight.
Proverbs chapter 10, verse 7, the title of tonight's message is, A Rotten Obituary.
A rotten obituary.
Brother Shepherd, upon looking at the title, so that sounds like the passages that he's been studying and teaching through, tells about the lies of the kings and all the wicked deeds they've done and things like that.
And that ties in very much to what we're studying tonight, because that's exactly what God gave them.
He gave those kings obituaries.
And we're studying the single sentence Proverbs here in chapter 10, and we learned last week that many of these Proverbs are statements of opposing truths.
Solomon will state a truth about something that's godly, and then he'll state a truth about that same subject, but the opposite of it that's ungodly, showing us the difference between the two.
And by doing so, by showing these opposing truths, it becomes its own unique and powerful way of teaching.
I was watching a news piece earlier this week that had a liberal pundit commenting on former governor Chris Christie getting booed at a GOP convention in Florida recently.
And that liberal pundit was describing those who booed him as being, quote, reprehensible.
Excuse me.
Mr.
Christie described them as being reprehensible.
Told them that's what they were.
The liberal pundit said the people who booed Mr.
Christie were part of a cult that votes for Donald Trump.
Then she said, Chris Christie, calling those supporters repensible will be one of the good things that make it into his obituary.
And I thought that was fascinating, that here's this woman who probably doesn't even believe in God.
And she was concerned about Mr.
Christie's obituary.
As far as we know, Mr.
Christie is in decent health and doesn't plan on dying anytime soon.
After all, he is running a president.
So he obviously plans to live for a few years.
Why is she talking about his obituary?
Why does she care about what's put into that obituary?
She does so because she recognizes the importance of the legacy that a person leaves behind.
She is saying after Mr.
Christie dies, he will be remembered as the man who called the Trump supporters reprehensible, which in her mind is a wonderful way for him to be remembered.
Now God did not create people to die.
He created them to live forever.
And even those who do not believe in God, like I feel certain she does not, even those who believe we simply return back to the ground when we die, and then that's the end of us.
Even those people still don't want that to be the end.
They know they are going to leave this earth, but knowing their value as an individual soul, they still want their memory to live on.
It's important to them.
Leonard Nimoy, y'all know who Leonard Nimoy is?
We do.
Brother Shepard does.
He did this.
He passed away a few years ago, and he was of course known for playing Spock on Star Trek.
And speaking of the character, Mr.
Spock that he played, Leonard once said, I'm only human, and I have no doubt Spock will outlive me by many years.
I can only hope that once in a while when people look at Spock's visage, they might sometimes think of me.
Why would he care that someone thinks about him after he's gone?
It's fascinating to me.
Why would he hope that people would think about him after he dies?
Why do people care what others think about them after they're gone if they're only going to turn back into dirt?
It's because there is a longing in every heart to continue to live.
If they can't live in the flesh, then perhaps they can live in the fond memories of those who still remain.
This is the topic of our proverb tonight, and I was quite edified by my study of it because God's word is teaching us tonight that God places great value on the memory of his people.
Solomon said, look, if you would, in verse seven, the memory of the just is blessed.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Just reading this ought to make us pause in wonder about how God cares about how his people are remembered after they die.
God cares about how you are remembered.
Solomon said the memory of the just is blessed.
Solomon is not talking about dead people being blessed by the fond memories that they had, how they once lived.
No, he's talking about living people, you and me, being blessed by our remembrance of the dead, of those who've gone before us.
Specifically, he's talking about our memory of those who have passed away who were just people, those who believed and obeyed the word of God.
Those are just people and only those people are just people.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Here's the kingdom and truth for you tonight.
God has blessed the memory of those who served him.
God has blessed the memory of those who served him.
Mark chapter 14 verses 3 through 9.
It would be a familiar passage to you, but maybe you didn't think of this before.
It says, In being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he said at me, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spiknerd, very precious.
And she break the box and poured it on his that is Jesus' head.
And there were some that had indignation within themselves and said, why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence and have been given to the poor and they murmured against her.
And Jesus said, let her alone.
Why trouble ye her?
She hath wrought a good work on me.
For you have the poor with you always and whensoever you will, you may do them good.
But me, you have not always.
She hath done what she could.
She is come beforehand to anoint my body to the bearing.
Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
Jesus was concerned how this woman was remembered thousands of years after she died.
He was concerned about how people would remember her when she was no longer here.
So he created a memorial for her.
He, through the Holy Spirit, made sure that this story was logged down in the gospel record.
I find that fascinating.
Jesus wanted people to remember this woman, to talk about this woman, to think about this woman, to honor this woman on Earth after she was no longer living on Earth.
Jesus wanted us to be blessed by her memory, by reminding us that we gain far more in eternity than we lose for Jesus in a moment's time.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Just the other day, my parents were reminiscing with me about the teaching ministry of Pastor Adrian Rogers, Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, and how much we have been blessed by him in his teaching over the years.
Nobody agrees with everybody on everything.
But Adrian Rogers did more to help me grow in my Christian faith than any other person.
And one night when I was so confused about my salvation, I went to go see Brother Rogers at his church in Tennessee.
I may have shared this story with you.
But after the crowd, on that Sunday night, after the crowd left, I walked up to Brother Rogers in a huge auditorium.
That church was so big.
You had to stay a long way from it and take a picture here and then turn and take a picture here of that thing.
It was huge.
And after that crowd left, Brother Rogers was about to walk off the podium like where I am here.
And I walked up there.
For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to telling him about my spiritual struggle.
I don't know why.
I drove all that way to do so.
All those hundreds of miles.
But I stood up there and I was about to talk to him and I was about to break down and cry due to my sheer mental and spiritual exhaustion.
And all I had managed to do was just ask him to pray for me.
And I'm sure looking at me and listening to my voice, he sensed something was going on in my life.
And I can still to this day remember him taking his right hand, putting it on the back of my neck.
I was only in my twenties, young twenties and him putting on the back of my neck.
And I remember as he began to pray, him taking his thumb on the back of my neck and just rubbing up and down my neck like a father would his son.
It was so precious to me.
I can still feel his thumb on the back of my neck.
And he prayed for me.
He prayed that God would bless me.
And God has brought that moment of time to my memory over and over again throughout my life as I've grown in the Lord and reminding me how he answered Brother Roger's prayer for me and how he loved me that night and touched me that night as a father would a son through his servant, Adrian Rogers.
And every time I remember how going down the road, this is after I was saved.
I was saved by reading after Charles had in Spurgeon, but I remember after I was saved still having these issues about my faith and wonder if it was good enough and all those things.
And I remember driving down the road one day and listen to him preach.
And I remember him saying, don't look at your look.
Look at Jesus.
And I remember the shackles falling off of my hands and feet with that truth when he said it.
I am blessed by those memories.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Understand tonight that God is the one who cares for us and who blesses us with the memories of his servants.
God gives us those memories.
God gives us those blessings that keep continuing with us even after the person he used is gone.
We are blessed when we remember Abraham offering up Isaac.
I have had the joy of teaching the Genesis to Jesus class to people who weren't familiar with the story of Abraham offering up his only son.
They get to hear it from the first time and I get to tell them about it.
And you know how it is.
Even you knowing the story, you still get on the edge of your seat as you are reading about it, you know?
Even though you know the outcome.
It is like a movie you have seen before and you still get tense watching it.
But we are blessed when we remember him being faithful and offering up his only son.
We are blessed when we remember Moses praying for Israel after they went astray.
We are blessed when we remember John the Baptist desiring to decrease so that Jesus might increase.
We are blessed when we remember our Savior who died for us in the apostles and the forefathers of our faith who gave their lives to make sure the Word of God got passed down to us like William Tenno and many others.
We are blessed when we remember Christian parents and grandparents praying for us when we were children.
I still have a memory of my grandmother kneeling down by my bed and praying for me before I went to sleep whenever I was at her house.
Precious memories.
Just the other day my 63-year-old co-worker, Jimmy Dunklin, was thinking back reminiscing on when he was a little boy, Sister Elizabeth, at Vacation Bible School.
He is 63 now.
He was a little boy back then at Vacation Bible School.
As long as I've known him, he's always had a passion for memorizing Scripture.
He's always had a passion for encouraging and challenging other people to memorize Scripture with him.
He's still memorizing Scripture today at 63 and he's still having his grandchildren now teaching them to memorize Scripture.
He was thinking back on when he was in Vacation Bible School and there was this Vacation Bible School teacher who encouraged the children to develop a habit of memorizing Scripture.
And he told me that's why he memorized the Scripture today because of that Vacation Bible School teacher when he was a little boy.
He told me, Richard, he said, that Vacation Bible School worker has no idea what impact they made on my life.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Church, if God blesses the memory of his servants, then you must realize that your impact on those around you may not be realized, it may not be cherished until after you are gone.
See that?
The time when the woman broke the alabaster box, from the public all she got was ridiculed.
They scorned her.
It's not until after she died that we're now talking about her.
The memory of the just is blessed, but at that time it was not.
She was scorned by those people.
Don't be weary in well doing.
You be that Vacation Bible School worker.
You have that plant that seed in that child's life.
You be the one to kneel down by your grandparents' bed.
Well, you might do it.
By your grandchild's bed and pray with them.
You live out your life for Jesus Christ around those around you.
And your memory will be blessed.
You may not see, you may just see the scorn today, like the woman with the alabaster box, but others will see the blessing of your faithfulness to God after you go away.
God will see to it.
Why?
Because we have that promise, the memory of the just is blessed.
Here's a kingdom truth.
Blessed memories are just memories.
Blessed memories.
The memories of the just are blessed.
Blessed memories are just memories.
It may be nice to remember the times that we enjoyed when we went fishing with our loved ones.
It may be nice to remember the fun times, the good times, the hard times that we shared together with our friends and family and our coworkers.
But it is the blessing of God to remember not the fun times, the hard times, the exciting times.
It's the blessing of God to remember the just times.
The times when God's will was faithfully performed by God's people.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Look back in your text.
But the name of the wicked shall rot.
The name of the wicked shall rot.
Whatever is done on earth by grace through faith in Jesus Christ shall endure forever.
Because it's worked by the Holy Spirit.
Remember we're told when we stand before Christ and we give account for the things that we did in our body that they're going to be tried by fire.
Remember?
And the things, there's going to be things that remain, the precious stones, the precious metals.
There's going to be things that remain that we did.
There's going to be things that get burned up and they don't remain that we did.
Everything that we do by God's grace through our faith in his son, that will remain.
Those are things that we do walking in the spirit of God.
The things that we do in the flesh that will not remain.
So whatever is done on earth by grace through faith in Jesus shall endure forever and the memory thereof shall be blessed forever.
But whatever is done on earth in the flesh, contrary to the will of God, shall perish with this wicked world.
And the memory thereof shall rot.
Yes, it's true, there are wicked people who admire the works of wicked men.
We have people right now praising Hamas, supporting Hamas.
There are some people who still admire Adolf Hitler.
They think, man, he had some great ideas.
The memory of the unjust may be admired, but it is not blessed.
There's a difference.
Wicked people admire wicked things just the same way that a fly admires manure.
But there's no blessing in those memories because there's no hope in those memories.
The name of the wicked shall rot.
The only way the memory of a departed soul can be blessed is if we have the assurance that they are blessed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You think about it.
You've got someone that you loved, someone you know, you're thinking about fond memories while I'm preaching about the memory of the just.
You think, oh, you know, I remember me and so and so how we used to go shopping together.
I remember how we used to go do this together and we used to do this and oh, those were great memories.
And you know, it's nice to have good memories, but those are not the memories we're looking at tonight.
Those may not be blessed memories.
We have to have the assurance that the memories we have of people are blessed through Jesus and His gospel.
Galatians chapter three verse nine.
Galatians chapter three verse nine says this, so then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
The Bible also says whatsoever is not a faith is sin.
So they be of faith that is the faith of Christ.
They are blessed with faithful Abraham apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The memory of every person is a rotten memory.
So brother Richard, I have memories of lost loved ones in their precious memories to me.
The memory of the wicked.
The Bible says is not rotten.
The memory of the wicked or the name of the wicked, excuse me, the name of the wicked, the Bible doesn't say the name of the wicked is rotten, does it?
What does it say?
The name of the wicked, what shall rock?
You have a nice banana.
My wife made a bunch of banana bread.
Boy, it looked good, sweetheart.
My wife made a bunch of banana bread.
I'm probably not going to share it with you.
But she made a bunch of it and there was one banana left out on the counter.
I don't know how it slipped out, but somehow it didn't matter to the bread.
But there was one banana left out on the counter and you can have a nice golden yellow banana.
It's not rotten, but eventually that banana will rot.
You can have people who do not trust Christ as their savior.
And in your mind today, they have gone on to the future and to eternity rather, wherever they are.
And if they did not trust in Christ, we know where they are.
And you may have fond memories of that lost person today.
But that person's memories will rot because there is no hope outside of Jesus Christ.
Every memory of a person apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ is a rotten memory because every time we think about them, we are reminded that they died in their sins without Jesus.
So, Brother Richard, that's cruel.
No, that's truth and it's sobering.
It's sobering.
The memory of the wicked man may please the carnal flesh, like remembering Adolf Hitler, remembering some other wicked person or communist.
So the memory of a wicked people, that memory may please the carnal flesh, but it gives us nothing we can hang on to.
By God's grace, I'll see Adrian Rogers again.
Have blessed memories, you see.
By God's grace, I will meet Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the one who wrote all of grace and for the first time in my life, he pointed me away from myself and what I could do to what Jesus did for me.
I get to meet him.
The memory of the just is blessed.
When I think of these men, I'm truly blessed and look forward to seeing them one day.
I don't hold their memories in vain, but when we hold the memories of people who do not know Christ, we hold them temporarily and ultimately those memories will rot because they will be cursed and they'll be casted out of darkness.
They'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth and in eternity, there will be no fond memories of those who rebelled against their creator.
The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot and their memories will serve only to disappoint those who cherish them.
For that, we'll go ahead and close tonight.
If you're listening to this message tonight, I can't help but think about the lost people who have conquered kingdoms, fought and won wars, did great feats just like the kings that Brother Shepherd is teaching about on Sunday morning.
When they get through, they want monuments built unto them, statues built unto them.
One day, all of those will perish away.
Every one of them will.
It'll all rot.
Only one life so soon will pass.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious Word.
We thank you for Lord being so simple and plain with us, Lord, with these one-sentence Proverbs, giving us so much to ponder on, putting it to us plain and straight.
We thank you that you've given us precious, holy memories.
Thank you, Father, for the just ones that you've placed in our lives, the ones who have pointed us to the cross, the ones who lived before us in the Scriptures, the ones who lived before us today, whose memories we'll be grateful for tomorrow.
We thank you for them, Lord, and thank you for blessing them.
Thank you for the writings of the apostles, the prophets, and blessing our memories as we read, Father, the just words you wrote through them.
Help us now, I pray, to live by grace through faith in Christ, and may our memories be a blessing to those we leave behind.
In His precious name we pray, and may all of our memories, Lord, be to the glory and praise of you and your Son, Jesus.
Amen.
