Now, for the last few Sundays, we have been giving consideration to some special days. We've had Baby Day and Children's Emphasis, and we've talked about training up a child and the way he should go. On Mother's Day, we talked, of course, about the Christian woman. And so today, concluding these four or five Sundays, on this special day, Memorial Day Sunday, I want us to answer the question, what kind of memorial will be left by our own lives? And I found something very interesting about life, simply that men seem to die as they live. It seems that a lot of us think that we can live one way and then die another. But the influence that a man leaves, the memorial of his life, is the kind of life he has lived, and it's very much summed up in the way he dies. Doctors tell us these days that deathbed repentances are almost a thing of the past. Because of medicine, many people are under drugs to take away the pain, and they're actually unconscious when they die. And we don't really change all that much at the last minute. And so as I've looked through the pages of the Word of God, I've studied and have come to bring to you this morning the stories of four or five men whose lives in the Bible were characterized by the way they died and whose death was characterized by the way they live. And I want to ask you simply this morning, what will people think about you after you've gone? What kind of shadow will your life leave? What kind of memorial will be made in you? Now, I know that we're going to stand and say a lot of things about you, a lot of which may not really be too true, and try to make it hopefully sound a little better than it really was. We always say that, don't we? But the Bible tells us that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that, the judgment. And God, who knows the facts, is very much able to make a real epitaph of how it really was. Now, I never forget one time I had gone to California to hold a revival, and I was from the country in a little town called Perry, Oklahoma. We didn't even know the Second World War was over yet. It was 1962. We were so far back in the woods, we didn't even get the Grand Ole Opry until Wednesday night. But I'd gone out there and looked around, and some of the things that really amazed me in Los Angeles was, one of them was the Coliseum. The Dodgers were playing baseball in it, and it seated 110 ,000 people. And we were on the fourth balcony, and it was about the seventh inning, and I'd been in this revival. I'd preached and cut it early so I could get out there and see the Dodgers play baseball. And a foul ball came up real high, and I reached out over to catch it, and somebody caught me by the coat and pulled me back in. I almost fell out and killed myself. You know, I thought that would really make a beautiful headline back in Perry, Oklahoma. Evangelist goes to California to win souls and falls out of a baseball stadium and breaks his neck. You know, that's not really the best way to go. So I began thinking, coming home, I wonder how I will die. Suppose somebody will shoot me, or I'll be run over by a truck, or maybe I'll just live to a ripe old age. And that sentiment gave birth to some thoughts about death. And I've made a lot of study in recent years about how men died, and always they die the way they live. And when I ask you how will you die this morning, I'm not thinking specifically whether it will be of disease or old age, or how the mechanics of death will occur, but I want you to answer the question for yourself, in what condition spiritually between myself and God will I die? And I'll tell you a part of the answer to begin with, exactly like you've lived. And so we need to be very careful about that. Now I want you to turn to the book of Acts, first of all, and let's look at a man named Ananias. Acts chapter 5, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, the fifth book of the New Testament, the fifth chapter, the first five verses. Acts chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. This is the story of a prominent church member in the book of Acts, the early church, very well -known, prominent Christian man. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being party to it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Wow. And to keep back part of the price of the land. While it remained, was it not thine own, and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power to do with, that is, what you wanted? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. In the New Testament, there was a powerful revival going on, and people were beginning to have a real concept of sharing and of ministering to one another. It had gone so far that people were bringing their money, as is the practice, to share jointly with the needs of others. Now, there was a lot of pressure because some people who were very committed to Jesus Christ were genuine and sincere in their desire to give. And they learned to count temporal things as being unimportant, and they were selling land to have money to give, and they were getting second jobs and making great sacrifice to give to the Lord's church and the Lord's people and the Lord's work. Well, out on the periphery of the crowd, there was a deacon and his wife that were trapped. Now, Ananias was a leader in the church. Well, I guess they really didn't have deacons for a couple more chapters. We'll call him a preacher, maybe, or a Sunday school teacher, probably one of the ushers, or a choir member, I guess. But anyhow, he was a leader in the church. Now, he had somehow, through the years, been catapulted into a place of leadership without the corresponding integrity. And what he really was on the outside and what he really was on the inside were two different things. And he had never really learned to give complete sacrifice of himself to the work of the Lord. And so when they began doing something physical and tangible, which was an external measure of a man's commitment, he was trapped. And people really started doing things. They started selling their land to give to the Lord's work. And everybody was doing it. And Ananias was in a corner. And he was going to have to try to look good, too, because as a spiritual leader in the church, he just assumed that he had to do the same thing. And so he and his wife cooked up a deal by which they sold a little piece of land. Now, this little piece of land might have brought $10 ,000. But my goodness, $10 ,000 was an awfully lot to give. So they got a little deal cooked up where they said, let's give $5 ,000 of it to the church. And we'll put the other $5 ,000 in the bank. And everybody will come parading by. And we'll prance up there and say, we sold our land. We got $5 ,000. Here's our gift. We are as dedicated as everybody else. And we'll look good. And nobody will know the difference. And nobody did know the difference except the Holy Spirit. Oh, he wasn't pleased at all. And God spoke through his servant and said, Ananias and Sapphira, why have you done this? I want you to imagine the dismay and the shock on these people's faces when they found out that the preacher knew. You say, well, the preacher had been meddling down at the courthouse. He checked their records. He knew. No, the Holy Spirit told him. You know, sometimes when folks come out of church, boy, they say, preacher, you've been reading my mail this week. I don't know who they are. But you know, the gospel is such that when a man declares that under the spirit of God's anointing, he can take one simple truth and apply it to a thousand needs. And everybody thinks they're shooting at him personally. Well, Peter went on to say, you didn't have to do this. You could have come simply and said, here's $5 ,000. You didn't have to assume. The appearances didn't have to be such that they weren't. It wasn't necessary. It was your and your power. And we didn't want your money if you really didn't want to give it. I heard Charles Allen saying that last Sunday morning at 9 o 'clock on TV at First Methodist Church. And it really struck a responsive note in my heart. I think folks ought to do what they want to do. I think you ought to do what you feel right in your heart about. God doesn't want anybody that gives his money to the Lord's work grudgingly. But out of love and appreciation, because they really want to. And they didn't do that. But they pretended like they did. And Peter said, you have not lied unto men. You've lied unto the Holy Spirit. You've lied unto God. What you are in pretending to be a man of complete dedication, and what you really are in a man who in fact holds back half of the price of dedication is a lie to the Holy Spirit. And it was of such severe dimensions that God said, I can no longer live in that body. You see, when you become a believer, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your heart. Now, when a man goes into a life of gross sin, and the Holy Spirit has to live in a defiled body, rather than the man going to hell and losing his salvation, when God couldn't allow that to happen, what he does is to take the believer prematurely from the world. It's called the sin unto death in 1 John chapter 5 and it's recorded five times in the Word of God. A man was living in incest, but he was a saved man and it became 1 Corinthians 5, inconsistent for the Spirit of God to indwell that kind of a body. So rather than leaving the body and making the man lost again, the only way the Spirit could leave a dirty body was for the man to leave this world. So God took his life prematurely. He killed him, the sin unto death. That's precisely what happened here. And that way God can be consistent with his promise to save and consistent with the fact, hear me, that he will not perpetually live in a defiled body. You see, that's very severe judgment that a man who pretends to be one thing as a spiritual leader and is in fact something else is so obnoxious to God that before he will tolerate that kind of disease, body and life and mind and heart, he will take him prematurely from the world that his soul might go on to heaven by the skin of his teeth, so to speak. But that is precisely what happened. I remind you that to whom much is given, much shall be required. And I suggest to you that this man, Ananias, died unclean. Now, secondly, there's a man in the Bible named Judas. I would suggest to you that Judas died unfaithful. He started out so well. Well, I imagine that Judas' intentions were the most sincere to begin with. I do not see Judas as a slant -eyed crook who said, I'm going to sneak in and cheat and steal. I think Judas was an honest businessman. I think he had good motives and good intentions. And he began to see the kingdom of God as a prosperous thing, but mostly in a physical sense. And there were an awful lot of folks who had this problem. Remember one day a woman came and said, Let my sons, James and John, sit on your right and left hand when you come into your kingdom. I mean, I'd like for them to be first and vice, second vice president on the board. It looks like a pretty good thing. Peter might have come and, you know, he always wanted to fight. He grabbed his sword. He might have said, Lord, I'll head up the army or let me organize a navy. Let's overthrow the Roman Empire. They never understood that it was not a physical thing until the very end. And so he came in under, shall we say, a miscomprehension? No, I think under an incomplete comprehension of what the kingdom of God was. And finally, when he got into it and he began to understand that God expected more than the Holy Spirit simply being a down payment of the whole thing, that he had more in mind than being engaged to Judas, that he wanted to live in his heart, be married with him, produce family and fruit, and be total Lord of his life, Judas was not willing to take himself, his big old wonderful self from the throne of his heart and let the Lord Jesus be there. And so he decided that it was a bad deal after all and he better just cash out. But being the businessman with a die to the dollar, he decided that while he was going to get out, he might as well get all he could. And so he sold the Lord Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. And he started out with good intentions, but he died unfaithful to his original comprehension. And I want you to understand that there are a lot of folks who are sincere at the beginning who never understand what it really means to be a Christian. And let me tell you that to be a Christian is a whole lot more than a fire insurance policy to keep you out of hell. It's a lot more than just getting religion on Sunday morning. I mean, Jesus Christ has in mind a totality of commitment in which he is the Lord and the master of your life, not because he's some kind of an egocentric maniac who wants to boss you around and demand that you glorify him for your own good, but because he understands that you are made for God in the image of God and that the Lord Jesus in your life is able to give you a fulfillment, a meaning which money and success and sex and materialism and fame and pleasure and a thousand things could never do. Don't become a Christian unless you have a full comprehension. But to be a Christian doesn't simply mean to accept the benefits of the gospel, an insurance policy against hell. It means that Jesus Christ has in mind not just being engaged to you, but being married to you, being one with you, being the Lord of your life, living through you and in you. Don't start out and end up unfaithful. Well, if Ananias died unclean and Judas died unfaithful, I would suggest that there's a third man. And we'll not go read through all these. You know the stories. I'll just allude to them. A man who died unprepared. His name was probably Dives. He's the rich man that died and went to hell. You remember the story about the poor man named Lazarus who died and went to heaven, the rich man who died and went to hell. It didn't have anything to do with being rich or poor. But the man was lost and he was unprepared and he was so prepared in everything else and that's a pity. I talked to someone this morning about marriage and I told them, you know, most kids come to me for counseling about marriage and talk about where you're going to live and what kind of car you're going to have and where you're going to bank, where you're going to school, what kind of job you're going to have, what color the living room is going to be painted. And they have made immaculate, elaborate, detailed preparation for marriage. Then I say, now what about the church? What church are you going to? Oh, we haven't talked about that. Is your wife a Christian? I don't know. I never ask her. You know, man, that's kind of like buying a car and making sure you've got an FM radio and power steering and, you know, coontails and mud flaps. I mean, all the goodies and you get all that on there. And by the way, what kind of a motor were you going to order? Huh? Oh, I didn't know you had that. You know, I didn't think about that. That's relatively unimportant. Man, that's what makes it go. I mean, Jesus Christ and your relationship to God is what makes a marriage go. And friends, that's what makes life go. This rich man was clothed in fine linen and purple. That's a sign of royalty as the political leader. He was the spiritual leader. He was a religious man. He was a rich man. He was politically powerful. The Jerusalem Gazette must have heralded the news that a prominent citizen had died. You could hear the prancing of thoroughbred horses in the stable. They dined on quail from under glass and the finest sherbets from Egypt. All of the accruements and niceties and finities of life, but it never occurred to him to think about his soul's destiny. And he was prepared in every other way, but he wasn't prepared to die. Until a man is, he's not really prepared to live. Well, there's a fourth man I want to talk about, and we'll kind of change the tenor here for a moment. You remember the story of Stephen, the first deacon. I would suggest to you that Stephen died unafraid, unafraid, unafraid. I like that. You know, we don't become martyrs all at once. We don't become heroes all at once at the last minute. When Stephen was stoned for his faith in Jesus Christ, you will remember the Acts records when they stoned him, when they stoned him, threw rocks at him, and stoned him to death, that he was bloody, rocks all around him, his bones broken, and he was not cavling and sniffling and pleading for mercy. The Bible records that he died with a smile, with integrity, praying for those like his Lord who were stoning him. Now, the way that he died was such a shock to a man who was watching him die, that man's name was Saul of Tarsus, that he set out on a lifelong journey to find the quality that this man had in his life, and he became the same kind of man the other man was, and that was the Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul because he stood by and held his coat while they stoned him to death, and he said, I never saw anything like that in all my life. You talk about memorial, you talk about leaving a memorial. This man, because he died unafraid, was instrumental in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul, who was the most instrumental man in the kingdom outside of the Lord Jesus himself it's built on than probably any man in the history of the world. Why? Because one deacon died like that. You say, all of a sudden he became a hero. No, no, he lived a life that was the life of a hero. You know where Stephen was? Why? His concept of being a deacon wasn't just going to deacons meeting, it was to witness, it was to work, it was to stand, it was to serve, and it was he, Stephen, with the other deacons that were out on the street corner. How could a man get stoned to death on the street corner? I'll tell you why, because he was preaching the gospel of Jesus. I don't think that's the first time he did it. Man, he lived a hero's life, therefore he was able to die a hero's life. I don't know if communism is going to take over this country or not. I don't know to what degree God will do what he's always done, and that's use pagan governments to judge his people. There's a very good chance of that. I don't know when Jesus is going to come, but if it's long enough, I expect the communist manifesto which says we shall take eastern Asia and Europe and India, thereby encircling the United States. Then we will await America's inner decay and victory will be ours, may come to pass in our lifetime. I don't know, but I do know this. If the time comes that you do have to suffer for Jesus Christ and maybe die for him, don't expect to die like a hero unless you've been living like a hero. There's plenty of chance to stand for him and suffer for him and live for him and pay the price for him right now, May 25th, or is it the 24th, 1975. Stephen died unafraid. That's the way he lived. The last word I'd suggest to you is about a man named Paul to whom I just referred and say that Paul died unashamed. I really like that. The Apostle Paul was, I think, the most brilliant man in the New Testament. Learned at the feet of Gamaliel. I think that he and Nicodemus were probably in a category as Jewish teachers of the most brilliant. Edersheim, I think, would say, has said as well, since the earliest, earliest days of Judaism, a genius man, a man who had more schooling and more intellect and more power and more fame and more prestige. And yet he said, I count all these things as nothing that I might know Jesus Christ and him crucified. Now for you and I to sit in a beautiful church with stained glass windows and red carpets and gorgeous facilities and a good sound system and a professional choir and stained glass windows when in a city like Houston, which is the buckle on the Bible belt, and say, I'm not ashamed of Jesus is one thing, brother. But for Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul to say it, is an entirely different world. Because for it, he was stoned and persecuted. He fasted. He starved to death. He was beaten. He was in peril. He was in the shipwrecks. He was in the deep. He was, he was beaten three times, 39 stripes. Do you ever wonder why? Because 40 would kill a man. So they always went 39, just one short of killing him. And he died in a dirty, rotten dungeon in his dying days before life left his body with mice and rats and filth and refuse and a mammoth time prison in Rome, where we have been, you wouldn't believe. You have to look up to sea bottom. And yet he said, I, with all of my intellect and all of my knowledge and all that I have in this world, I counted nothing. I would rather stand for Jesus Christ and be unashamed of him than all of the stars of the Roman empire and all of the wealth of the world. Can you say that? Oh, I don't know how I'm going to die, but I'll tell you this. I just hope and pray that if I have to be crucified upside down or burned at the stake or shot through the head or anything that any of us might do for Jesus Christ, I hope we'll do so with dignity and honor. Let me tell you something. I'm not nearly as concerned about that as I am, but this summer and this week in your school, in your office, that you live an unashamed life for Jesus Christ. You see, if you can witness for him where you are, if you can take a stand on a moral issue, if you can smile politely, not like a pompous Cheshire cat when somebody tells a filthy joke, you know, if you can take a stand, if you can dare to be different, whatever the cost, whatever the issue, whatever the price, unashamed of who Jesus is, whose you are, then you'll be able to die like that. You may never have to, but I'll tell you, you can live for him and die daily. How will you die? What will be said of your life? What kind of lengthening shadow will your life give across the horizon of time? What will men say at your funeral? What kind of memorial will be left in the lives of your children and your family and your little sphere of influence? Well, just like you've lived. So in either of these extremes or anything in the middle, I ask you, as we remember with dignity and love and respect those who have lived and gone on before on this memorial weekend of the year that we give a fresh consideration to how we live for that's just how we'll die. Let's bow our heads together. Our Heavenly Father, we pray in the name of Jesus that men and women shall see a great deal of sincerity and depth in the importance of the fact that we've got to look at life and look at death and come face to face with who we are and what we are and how we are. God speak earnestly and seriously to us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.