Mark Giordano - Class 2 - Comfort in Loss - Retrieval in the Kingdom

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   The second talk in Brother Mark's series on the God of all comfort is entitled, Comfort in Loss, Retrieval in the Kingdom. Please give your attention to Brother Mark.

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   Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not my intention to make you sad. But to show you the comfort that comes in the sharp contrast between the things that make us so sorrowful and what God has promised in his deliverance. Because we don't sorrow as those who have no hope. We sorrow as those who have hope. And that hope is very real.

3. 0:49

   It is able to sustain us even in the worst of circumstances, like when you lose someone you love. So, this is the subject of this part in our series, Unbearable Loss. The testimony of Sister Amy. It was all I could do to get Sister Amy at the point at which I was forming this part to tell me how she felt.

4. 1:17

   Because something in her died in this circumstance. This is her son Dominic at the age of 20. And Dominic was a really, he was just a beautiful guy. I remember when he was growing up, I was building an addition on to take care of my mother after my father died. And that took seven years.

5. 1:49

   It was, those of you who build additions know how big this can get. For us, it was really big. And it took up seven years of my life, which turned into a decade. Following the shoulder injury I got in the last stages of doing the building part. But during that time, Dominic went from being a young boy in our ecclesia to a young man.

6. 2:10

   And he grew up kind of in the periphery where I was concerned. He was just a kid standing along the aisles. After meeting was over, I saw him come in to see YCs and not say much. He was quiet and to himself. And I didn't really learn by that, in that stage of his life, what manner of person Dominic was.

7. 2:32

   But he was the kind of person that virtually everyone loves and everyone admires. There was just something so extraordinarily special about Dominic. And I started to say when, I only learned later on when he came back from college after his first year and said, I want to be baptized. So we got together in his interview.

8. 3:01

   And it was the only time this has ever happened to me in an interview for baptism where he did something for me. Usually I'm doing something for them. But he did something for me in the manner in which he related to me. It was so extraordinary that when the interview was over, I came in the kitchen and I said, I've never really met anybody like Dominic because in his baptism interview, he made me feel special.

9. 3:29

   How do you do that? I was asking him questions. He was on the spot. How did he, what did he do that made me feel special? He was just a young man. I'm the old guy. I'm not special anyway. But he made me feel special. And he did that because he had this, I'm going to, for lack of a better word, I'm going to call it a magical ability.

10. 3:50

    It's not really magical, but just a special way with people. Part of it was in his smile. And he had a whole philosophy in his life about smiles. And he had one very special smile. You can't really see it in this picture. You'd have to get eye contact with him to see the twinkle and what that smile was delivering to you in the form of total acceptance.

11. 4:12

    But that kind of acceptance you don't get from everybody in this world, but you get it from Dominic. And everybody got it from Dominic. So this was his baptism. He was baptized two months before he fell asleep. Two months. He was in the Lord. This is the day of his baptism. You can see his mother, Amy, there.

12. 4:35

    She was the happiest woman in the world in that moment. And you can kind of see Dominic's smile here. If those eyes caught yours with that smile, you just felt like you were special. And I don't know how that can happen. I would love to have a gift where a smile can transfer that level of acceptance to other people.

13. 4:56

    But he was such a beautiful guy. And then he had an accident. And I don't need to get into the details of his accident here. That's not important. It was a sudden death. He died within 15 minutes of his accident. And when they brought him back to Virginia, he died in Texas. And when they brought him back to Virginia, we all went to his funeral.

14. 5:22

    He had people from his home, Ecclesia in Arlington, come down. And an older brother there delivered his address. But everybody in his high school, this is a year after he's gone to Texas for college, his whole high school class was in the funeral.

15. 5:39

    What kind of a person is that? It's just somebody who's got a lot of love and receives all the love that he sends. He's that kind of individual. So you might imagine what happened to his mother when she realized she had lost him. I've seen people lose people before, but I have never seen it impact someone as gravely, as deeply, as sorrowfully as it impacted Sister Amy.

16. 6:07

    And we had a real condition on our hands with her. It was by God's grace that she gave me permission to speak about her love for Dominic and the way she had to cope with it. She barely could. Her life was over. She felt like dying. She was certainly suicidal. It was tragic for her.

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    She had no reason for being. He was her only son. And she never had any other children. And so I asked her, Amy, what's the one thing, the one thing that anchors your hope? Same question I asked Sister Dawn. And she said, it's this one. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

18. 6:48

    And her eyes were a stream of tears for at least a year. Just the tears just never stopped flowing. She couldn't come to meeting. She couldn't come to dinner. We invited her over to dinner. She just sat home alone and cried for a year. And never ran out of tears. And so when she read this verse and realized that God would wipe away every tear, every tear from her for her, maybe a little bit different than all of the tears in your eyes.

19. 7:17

    And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. So, rewind a little bit and think what would have happened to Amy if this verse hadn't been in her heart. If God had never said that and she never read it.

20. 7:35

    Either one. What would have anchored her in the knowledge of this tragedy? There's one, you know, there's the verse and there's the hope of the kingdom and there's the big picture as we were just talking about a few minutes ago. But how close is God? There's another factor in all of this suffering that you need to see in this picture.

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    I don't know if you've seen it yet. But God is so close to you that he's closer to you than your prayers. He knows your prayers before you ask them. We already know that. But how close is God to you? Well, I'll show you how close God was to Amy the day she went to visit Dominic at his grave.

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    And she put this rainbow array wreath over his tomb with his picture in the middle. Did you see in the background? How could you stage a rainbow behind that wreath? That's not staged by anything except heaven. Amy couldn't talk. She could barely listen to anything. She had a few good things in her heart from God's word.

23. 8:47

    And so God spoke to Amy in a language, perhaps the only language in the moment that she could understand. He put a rainbow over Dominic's grave. As if to say, my covenant is as real as the rainbow you're looking at right here. And so she saw that. She couldn't believe that a rainbow occurred in that moment over that wreath.

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    And so she took a picture of it. And I think we're the beneficiaries of this intimate moment between God and Sister Amy. So if you get anything from that, if you can take some kind of comfort from that, yes, there is hope in the future. And God's word is sufficient to manage the tribulations that you have to bear.

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    But he is also intimately familiar with how you feel. He is in your footsteps. He is in your prayers. He's in your life. He's aware of you. He knows you. And he carries you in the palm of his hand. We're going to look at that in a minute. It's closer than you think.

26. 9:54

    This was Amy's ordeal. He was my only son, which gave her a special identification with some of the deeper aspects of our faith in the scriptures. He was my only son. She kept saying that to me. He was my only son. But the paradox in that is that being her only son, she had an intimate connection with the concept of the loss of an only son in scripture.

27. 10:22

    So she poured over the story of Isaac. She poured over the story of the sacrifice of Christ. And she found things. She poured over the scriptures for a year. All she could do was read her Bible. She listened to Christadelphian talks about loss and suffering and trials and tribulations. She poured over Job.

28. 10:40

    And she found things. And she saw things. And when I had the good fortune to see the things that Amy saw through her eyes, there was comfort there. In the context of the loss of my only son. Oops. It was Amy's identification with scriptures. So now let's, understanding that, let's look at how she would read these scriptures.

29. 11:05

    Having lost, having had her son cut off in his prime. So she reads this. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The spirit of grace and supplication. You know from its context that this is in that part of Zechariah that speaks about when they realized.

30. 11:23

    That Jesus is now returned to the earth. He's going to be the king that was promised to the throne of his father David. But this is the same Jesus of Nazareth that they crucified when he was with us. And he will pour out the spirit of grace and supplication. And they will look on me.

31. 11:43

    This is a very interesting usage of language. As if they pierced God when they pierced his son. You know what that means. We're speaking about the effect of the extent to which human nature was so evil. Not recognizing the royal majesty of the kingdom when it stood right before them. But going so far as to murder the son of God in cold blood.

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    After he had done nothing but love them. Nothing but love them. And they will look on me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him. You see the change in pronoun? As one mourns for his only son. So Amy reads this and she goes. I know how God feels. I know how he felt the day that Jesus died.

33. 12:35

    I know what it's like to mourn for your only son. There is no grief like it. And grieve for him as one grieves for a firstborn. Her grief, as she said, was just too great to be comforted. There wasn't any comfort. She couldn't find comfort in anything. Any of the aspects of the realm of her faith.

34. 12:52

    And she lived in the truth all her adult life. There was no comfort to be found. This was the gravity of her mourning. So she finds this verse. And Jacob rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his loins. And mourned for his son many days. When he realized, untruthfully, but he realized that Joseph was dead.

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    At least in his perception. And he mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him. But he refused to be comforted. And that was Amy's disposition. But how do you think this verse met with Amy's disposition when she realized that she, like Jacob, refused to be comforted?

36. 13:33

    She had a friend. She had one who understood. And he was right there in God's word. And the story is very clear. And later on, his son was brought back to him. He was joined together with his son. And she took the full impact of that. Because, as we'll see later, they know you don't understand.

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    You can come up and put your arm around somebody that lost their son and say, you know, I understand. They know you don't. You shouldn't say that. We'll see that later. But when she read the story of Jacob, she said, well, Jacob understands.

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    And he said, for I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him. So you find that God is already there with his empathy. He's already there with stories that show you he does understand, even though it seems that no one really around you can understand.

39. 14:29

    So she read this. These are verses that I asked Amy. I said, send me the verses that are impressing you. I'd like to speak about them because they will translate to comfort in the context of your sufferings with the people we speak with in Bible schools. And so she said her sorrow overwhelmed the comfort.

40. 14:49

    But she knew that God understood. Because she read in Jeremiah, when I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint with me. In other words, I want to have comfort, but my heart is failing. My mind doesn't seem to be, in this case, heart is my thoughts. My thoughts faint within me.

41. 15:08

    That was all. The extent of her strength was fainting. And yet, what's she doing? She's identifying with every line of empathy as it is in God's word. And that's because God who created you and me and brings us through this life and especially watches over our faith to the extent that we are promised to be his workmanship.

42. 15:32

    This God knows how you feel. He knows what you're going through. And he's already addressed it in his word. But you have to look for it. And sometimes you have to go through it to find out what he's saying. She said, I felt like screaming to God because wicked people live and her good boy died.

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    But the scriptural answer is this. Behold, these are wicked. See if God hasn't already addressed this thought. Always at ease. They increase in riches. For all the day long, I've been stricken and chastened every morning. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me to be a wearisome task. Until I went to the sanctuary of God.

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    Until I went to the temple or to the ecclesia. Until I came to the place where everybody is gathered together in oneness of mind about all these conditions. With a very brutal, frank honesty as to the law of sin and death that operates in our members. And to make the world the evil place that it is.

45. 16:27

    And God's remedy in the future. When I came there, that's the sanctuary. Then I perceived their end. Truly thou dost set them in slippery places. Thou dost make them fall to ruin. How they're destroyed in a moment. Swept away utterly by terror. As if he's, that sounds like an allusion to the flood.

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    Swept away utterly by terrors. They are like a dream when one awakes. On awaking, you despise their phantoms. So again, she felt like screaming to God about the wicked. But then she reads this about what God has to say about that. And it's his absolute reassurance that all this is just for the moment.

47. 17:09

    So she had this stark contrast between how she felt naturally suicidal. Ruined in life. Left with nothing. And her spiritual knowledge which began to tie down anchors for her. Emotional anchors, mental anchors, even physical anchors. All this like securing her so that no matter how bad the storm got. How raging the wind and the seas were around her.

48. 17:41

    How dark the day. Somehow or another she was anchored. She had something that held her fast. And that's the power of the comfort that comes spiritually from God's word. In contrast to some kind of immediate relief. The only kind of immediate relief that would have satisfied her is, well, reverse his death. Bring him back to me.

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    And that's not going to happen. Because that happens according to God's time. So she reads this. Like Rachel weeping for her children. I refuse to be comforted. So I finally had to say to her. Don't be comforted. Just know that you'll see him again. But don't be comforted. It occurred to me during the time.

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    I'm just going to add this in. Because I think it's significant to say that. We know that there's a principle in scripture about our lives in Christ. Our efforts to overcome everything and finally wind up passing through the judgment into everlasting life. We know all that. That's the way this works. That there's an inherent promise that this is God's work, not yours.

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    So you can't make yourself righteous enough to be in the kingdom. It has to come through the sacrifice and the mediatorship of Christ combined with your faith. But ultimately you'll be saved by grace and faith. And that means that if God is working in your life. If he's doing anything. If he knew you before you knew him.

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    And he called you. And you responded to the call. Then you realize you were justified. And you know that the hope is of one day being glorified. That's God's workmanship. It's not something that you're doing. It's something that God is doing. Right? That's a principle. So consider applying that principle to Dominic. He's 20 years old.

53. 19:24

    He just got baptized. His baptism, his interview was an inspiration to me. He was an inspiration to everybody who knew him. And then his life gets cut short and he dies. Well what does that say if and when the time comes Dominic is received into the kingdom of God? It says of Dominic that he was a finished work at the age of 20.

54. 19:52

    That God's workmanship with Dominic was complete. If it hadn't been, God could easily have avoided the accident. So then there's a thought that follows that. What manner of man really was this young man if he was a finished work at the age of 20? I don't think I'm going to be done at 90 if I should even live that long.

55. 20:14

    But Dominic appears to have been a finished workmanship of the Lord. A polished gem at the age of 20. And that's only, that's a hypothetical statement. It's dependent upon whether or not he gets in the kingdom. That remains to be seen. But anyway, she described this. She's identifying all these things. She says like Rachel weeping for our children, I refuse to be comforted.

56. 20:35

    I feel like I'm hanging on the end of a rope. She said I'm over an abyss. Below me is nothing. It's black. It's dead. I'm hanging on to a rope where the only thing keeping me from letting go is the knowledge of the resurrection.

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    What kind of knowledge is that? I'll tell you what kind of knowledge that is. That's the knowledge of an accomplished fact. It's the knowledge of an event that actually happened in the history of this world. It's a knowledge of something that is undeniable if you have an honest heart. And that knowledge in her mind was the only thing that kept her holding on to this rope.

58. 21:20

    So listen to this. So she reads along. And then it gets this close to her. If the rainbow wasn't enough, she reads this verse. And this verse isn't only for Amy. This is for all of you. For you and me and all of us here who in the last days are desperately waiting for Christ to return because this world is as bad as our desperation.

59. 21:46

    Our desperation probably doesn't even come close to defining how evil this world is in its last years before Christ's return. Sing for joy, O heavens and exalt, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into me. No greater grief, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me.

60. 22:10

    The Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman, this is where Amy's reading this and she goes, can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? And she knew it's not possible. A woman cannot forget this infant that she brought into this world, this new beautiful life.

61. 22:31

    Then God says this, even these may forget. Yet I will not forget you. So she's thinking God is saying that about Dominic. He's saying that it's intrinsically here about Jerusalem, about Israel. But inclusive in that are all those who are part of Israel by faith. They're on that tree. We're grafted in. So God says, if a woman could actually forget the infant that she bore from her womb, yet I will not forget you.

62. 23:03

    Behold, he says. And why? What's the substance of that memory? I have engraven you on the palms of my hands. What do you think that's an allusion to if it's not the sacrifice of Christ and the wounds that they look at when they see the wounds in his hands and his feet and they mourn for him and they weep over him as one weeps for his only son?

63. 23:34

    So in other words, what God is saying is, I have taken your life and engraved it in my mind on the palms of my son's hands. And a mother may forget her child, but I will never forget you. You were born at the sacrifice of my son. So you can see why Jesus said, he that believes and is baptized will be saved.

64. 23:57

    Because you also, like Dominic, are God's workmanship. He will not fail you. You may fail him. I know you don't want to. And you probably won't. Because all that is necessary of you is belief and the faith and works that follow that belief. I have engraved you on the palm of my hand.

65. 24:18

    So she reads this and she knows this is God's connection with her and her connection with Dominic in the resurrection. So just recently, two years after Dominic fell asleep, she says this. I'm trying to endure this tragedy and my life until the end by holding onto my hope rope and looking earnestly for Christ to return.

66. 24:38

    What's that again? She's got a new name for this rope. She used to call it the only thing she could hang onto that kept her from falling into an abyss. Now she calls it her hope rope. I asked her just recently, I said, you still hanging on? She said, yeah, it's my hope rope.

67. 24:56

    It's good. I'll not let go of my hope rope. So she converted the edge of her disaster to the fullness of her hope in that one little illustration. Looking earnestly for Christ to return. It struck me this year that Christ uses the word endure. So, you know, we think about endurance and, you know, it's just a word that has a definition.

68. 25:20

    She reads that word and all of a sudden things come to life in her mind. Why would he say endure if things were not painful in this life? To endure acknowledges that there will be suffering. I'm holding on and enduring until Christ comes because I know. And she said, I know. And then she put dot, dot, dot.

69. 25:36

    I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. What gives her that knowledge? Is God's infallible word on one hand and her faith on the other. There's two hands full of knowledge. I'm longing for the day when the following will happen. And I will hear these words. Now, I don't know how you've ever read this verse.

70. 26:02

    But I've read it as a part of the story. Think of how Amy reads this verse. I'm longing for the day, she says, when I will hear these words. Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. She read that and she said, that's what Jesus is going to do with me.

71. 26:31

    Jesus is going to command his life and then give him back to me. What power is there in our hope? And it's this suffering, this affliction, this specific story that applies to our hope here, now, as comfort. Because we have the assurance of the things that we hope for and the conviction of the things in the future that we just can't see today except through the eye of faith.

72. 26:58

    And then she added what was said of Jesus on the cross to Mary. Woman, behold your son. And the paradox of relating what John said, what Jesus said to his mother and what she plans to experience in the future with her son. Just, you can see how all of a sudden things you may have read all your life really come to life in the context of affliction.

73. 27:29

    That special affliction by which we are comforted, as Paul said. So there's a principle of loss in all of this that I think we need to take home with us. This is one of our takeaways today. A life is not lost unless it is lost to God. Because lost to God, the life is lost, but it's not lost unless.

74. 27:52

    So that's why Jesus said, what does it benefit a man to gain the whole world, yet he loses his life? This is another story that I'd like to tell you now about loss in baptism. In the context of something that happened to a brother, a brother that gave me permission to tell his story just recently, around the same time that Dominic, we lost Dominic.

75. 28:15

    And it's this faithful father's plea. He says, he that believes, or rather, it's in the context of Jesus having said, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved. There was an unexpected tragedy that entered the life of this family. This is brother Peter Boone in Australia. He's a real close friend of brother Jim Cowie.

76. 28:34

    And this was his message to the audience that he spoke to on the day of his son's funeral. He said this, two weeks ago, a woman, just for a moment, did not look or pause to contemplate. Her eyes were closed to an oncoming motorcycle. The tragic result of her decision was the death of my son, who we buried today.

77. 29:00

    God demands faith from us. God demands faith. Faith leads somewhere. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved. But James was not baptized.

78. 29:17

    And so the grief that brother Peter Boone felt was a different kind of grief than the grief that sister Amy felt when Dominic died. Dominic died shortly after his baptism. This young man was not baptized yet. So he continues with his message. My son James, like most young people, struggled to engage in this course of life.

79. 29:41

    If there's any one small token of value in his death, it is the trumpet call to make excellent choices. This is specifically now speaking to people who may not be baptized yet, who aren't baptized yet. Stare with us at his body today. Choose your friends well. Choose the places you go to so they improve you.

80. 30:04

    Fill your minds with brave endeavor. Choose to generously give away for others and embrace an endearing place for God in your passion so that he can fill your life with the richest meaning. It's kind of like it was so simple, but his son never could find the point at which he could draw the conclusion to bury with Christ and be raised in newness of life with Christ.

81. 30:27

    And that hope that is the anchor of all these things. It's like Naaman's servants. When Naaman got upset because he said, why, why, I thought he was just going to come out here and wave his hand, say, be healed and I would, I would get better. Why, what's all this business about being dumped?

82. 30:43

    And don't we have good rivers back in Syria, in Syria rather? And, you know, he's going on and on and his servants go. If the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? Much more than when he says to you, wash and be clean. And if he's not talking about baptism there, I don't know what he's talking about.

83. 31:05

    And this was a long time before baptism was even brought into being. So Solomon's advice correlates with that. And all of this is meant to impress you if you are not baptized yet, that there are things that happen in life that you don't expect. And you never know what the outcome of those things can be.

84. 31:28

    Disasters can rob you of your very life. So remember your creator. Remember now your creator in the days of your life, in the days of your youth rather. Take your life seriously. Think about what God has offered you. Think about what he provided in the form of a sacrifice of his son who's willing to die on the cross.

85. 31:49

    Take all your sins on himself. He bore all our iniquities in himself. So that you could have everlasting life in God's kingdom. Love bears all things. Believe all things. And hopes all things. So young people, if you believe in love, you believe everything that God said. You'll bear everything that happens to you in your life.

86. 32:13

    And you will hope all the things that God has given you to hope for. And you will realize that belief and that bearing and that hope, that strength. You will realize that in a confession of faith that is expressed in a willingness to die with Christ in a death like his. So that you can be raised with him in a life like his.

87. 32:33

    There's another aspect to what we're talking about in the context of severe loss that I think we need to address in the remaining few minutes of our part two here. And that's knowing what to say when you're around someone who is experiencing this level of loss. Most of us, when we encounter this for the first time, we really don't know what to say.

88. 32:57

    And we realize we don't know what to say. It can be very awkward to be with a family who just lost a loved one. So this is a little practical advice on what to do that has been given to our ecclesia. And I'm passing on to you, with Brother David Levin's permission, some advice as a rehabilitation counselor that he has given on knowing what to say.

89. 33:19

    So he sent us a letter and he said, Comfort in a time of severe loss does not come from intellectualizing. It comes from being human and allowing grief to have its full expression. We tend to think that displays of emotion mean we lack faith. Just the opposite is true. Our grief shows our love for the deceased and his family.

90. 33:43

    It shows our understanding of mortality and of all of its horrible events. It gives us opportunity to show unity, support, love, care, and compassion. And he's speaking about the grief that we share with these people. Please don't try to shortcut, short circuit the value of grief. Grief is an important part of loss.

91. 34:02

    People who are traumatized and aren't processing very much anyway. Hugs and tears and even sitting in silence with them communicates more than words. So he's saying allow a place for grief and validate the feelings of grief. May not have occurred to you, but this is very practical and good advice. How to relate to someone suffering from severe grief.

92. 34:27

    These are some practical tips. Save theology for another time. There's a place for it later, but not in the trauma of loss. Instead, be sympathetic. So initially replace theology with sympathy. It works. Avoid saying, I know what you're feeling. They know you don't. Remember I mentioned this a little while ago. Better to say, I can't imagine what this is like for you.

93. 34:49

    In other words, it gets to a higher level of truthfulness. I have no words, but I'm here. That's all they need to know. Help comforts more than words. So don't say, let me know if I can do anything. Do say, tell me what you need right now. See the difference? Help with meals, cleaning, lightening the burden of daily affairs.

94. 35:09

    And I know that sisters' hands go to work in times like this. And they make food and they bring it over. You got food for a week or two from the loving care of sisters. Sometimes people will sit with you. And that's all you need. You just sit and look at things. Look out the window.

95. 35:29

    Avoid sayings that attempt to alleviate the pain of grief. Better to be a good listener. You don't have to have answers. You can listen, acknowledge, cry, reminisce, and be present in silence. And one of the principles of good listening is reflection. So reflection isn't an answer. If somebody says, I feel like I want to die.

96. 35:49

    In your own words, you say back to them what they just said to you. It's not affirming that wanting to die is a good thing. Let's say, make that an example. I feel like I just want to die. If you say to them, so I hear what you're actually saying is you feel so bad, you feel like dying.

97. 36:06

    You just say back in your own words what they just said to you. That's the principle of reflective listening. And what that does for them is it makes them feel like you understand. You wouldn't say that. You wouldn't be able to say it if you didn't understand what you're saying. If you come back and say, oh, now you don't feel that way.

98. 36:20

    That's not going to be empathic understanding. Okay. So remember the value of reflective listening in this principle. Support is practical in loss. There's no such thing as recovery from major loss. And you'll hear this across the board. The people whose children are shot in school shootings. And they always say, we will never get over this.

99. 36:40

    The one thing the parents say when they get together with the president or whatever is they say, we will never get over this. There's no recovery. So that seems to be a fact across the board, across the spectrum of circumstances where this kind of disaster occurs. Hearts are broken that time cannot heal.

100. 36:58

     And Amy would be the first to testify to that. She'll never get well from that broken heart. Peace comes when we reconcile the loss. So that reconciliation to loss is different than recovering from it. It's a reconciliation. It's more of an acceptance than an abandonment. And the anchor is hope. In the months to come, after the immediate event, be careful not to avoid them.

101. 37:23

     The first year is the worst. That certainly has been our experience. Beyond that, it's good to ask how they are doing. Mention the name of the one that is lost and share your own sadness. So taking Brother David Levin's advice, in the first year, every time I gave an exhortation, I drove the point as it would relate to Dominic.

102. 37:44

     You see me speaking about Dominic right now? I decided to never forget. We can't keep him alive, but we can keep the concept, the meaning of his death alive. We can keep the comfort that comes from faith in the context of his death alive. The comfort is the thing that lives. Mentioning Dominic in Amy's presence and exhortations and things does the world for her because we're not letting him go.

103. 38:10

     So if you never talk about him again, then you've kind of abandoned the memory. And even though it is a fact of human existence that even the memory of people is lost in death, we can at least provide this assurance, especially if there's an anticipation of resurrection in the future to the people who have lost their loved ones.

104. 38:31

     Sometimes the bereaved have a change in their social circles. Accept those shifts. This is natural. There's not a problem with it. Allow them their own timetable. And lastly, he said, if somebody needs to talk more about this, have them call me. If you have any uncertainties about what might be helpful, he's a mental health professional specializing in grief and traumatic loss.

105. 38:52

     So I have a slide here that shows, that is just meant to show you that there's contact information that will be in the PDF files that you can download off your site after I make them available to Brother Dave. And if you have any questions about any of this, there are other things in this website, mintdesign.com slash comfort.

106. 39:11

     There's full descriptions of what these sisters went through and lots of interesting things that are just beneficial in the form of the right kind of knowledge. And he said, I said, do you mind if I plug your book that's coming out? And he said, no, I don't mind. He said, I don't know when it's going to be published.

107. 39:31

     Just in a moment of honesty, but he said, until sorrow cease, coping and caring in times of loss and suffering. So that's what David Levin said. Now I would like to spend a few minutes on what Yahweh says. Yahweh has some things to say about loss, don't you think? I think he did.

108. 39:48

     I think he comes to us with the absolute assurance of the creator and sustainer of the universe. One who can bring atoms into existence. One who can take someone that has long since turned to dust and recompose them into human form again. Breathe into their nostrils the breath of life again. Bring back all their memories.

109. 40:12

     Bring them to face to face with their redeemer in the last day and say to them, welcome, good and faithful servant. Enter thou in the joy of thy Lord. This is the God who has something to say about loss. Resurrection is an accomplished fact. I'm just going to say this because I think it's effective.

110. 40:36

     There's a French expression for the phrase accomplished fact. I think it's a beautiful expression. I'm going to say it here, just to help you remember this is what we said. It's fait accompli. Something that's a fait accompli is an accomplished fact. The resurrection is that. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.

111. 41:00

     We certainly aren't. Lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring him, with him, those who sleep in Jesus. So there's the accomplished fact of Jesus' death and Paul is arguing, if that happened, the future resurrection is sure.

112. 41:21

     So we have the assurance of the things hoped for. Yet behold, there shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters. And when Amy reads this, she reads that word son. It comes out to her in bright lights and daughters. And I know a brother who lost the light of his life, a little daughter, when she was 12 years old.

113. 41:42

     And he told me with tears, years later, with tears streaming out of his eyes, that he had three sons and a daughter. And his daughter was the most spiritual minded of all his children and he lost her to leukemia when she was 12. And I said, well, she may not be lost. You know, Jesus said he would answer your prayers.

114. 41:58

     So leave that in God's hands. So it says here, they will rise again. Yet behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters. Behold, they shall come forth unto you and you shall see their way and their doings and you should be comforted. Thou which has showed me great and sore troubles to David shall quicken me again and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

115. 42:26

     Thou shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every side. Really? Did you get that? And comfort me on every side? Every side of what?

116. 42:50

     Where? Here. In a portion reserved for that comfort in the future with Christ. A private area where Christ and his bride will live in the kingdom. It's called the prince's portion in Ezekiel. This is what Robert Roberts said of the prince's portion where Amy will enjoy hours and hours, days and days and years without end in the knowledge of her son being a living, immortalized being with her, next to her.

117. 43:26

     The prince's portion will be a stately realm in the land of promise stretching far enough east to embrace the original garden of Eden where the first Adam was expelled. It is assigned to the last Adam as a palace of his glory on earth, the retreat of his loving communion with the bride, the lamb's wife.

118. 43:43

     The allotment is not only a holy portion of land containing a city and a sanctuary but a portion for the prince containing over 10,000 square miles. Such an immense area laid out in the paradisiac beats of Eden. Beats is an old English word for a beaten path, a familiar route in the beats or the pathways of Eden is a suitable privacy, a suitable privacy for the once crucified king.

119. 44:12

     So looking at a map, the purple area would be the area where the prince's portion is and it goes eastward from the temple. So if you look at this particular picture, I think why Robert Roberts said a portion of at least 10,000 square miles, he mused elsewhere, well it might not be 10,000 square miles, it might be 50,000, 40,000 or 50,000 square miles.

120. 44:38

     Well this would be if you extend the prince's portion eastward to the tip of the Persian Gulf. So it would be from sea to sea then, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf covering that tract of land. But when I drew this illustration, I thought, that doesn't, I wouldn't do that if I was designing the prince's portion.

121. 44:57

     I'd make it a little bit bigger because it's got a lot of people who are his bride and all of them have to be housed and have their own properties and places to be in the private portion outside of the rest of the world which still has humanity all over it. It's controlled humanity by the righteousness of Christ's law but it's humanity nevertheless and so this special area reserved for Christ and his bride is a very special area and that to me doesn't look like the property that should be the design.

122. 45:26

     So let's just keep looking at this. If you extend this to a concept of maybe 256,000 square miles it's a big tract of land and just make everything the prince's portion you know like that that would be kind of everything that Abraham was able to see north, south, east, and west when he was on a high place and he looked you can see that level you can see 256,000 square miles with the naked eye.

123. 45:49

     So that would be to extend what Abraham saw but half of it's in the Mediterranean Sea so that doesn't work for me either. It might make a little bit more sense to extend Jesus' private property over a little bit further and give him at least 500,000 square miles because there are going to be a minimum of 144,000 people numbering his bride and that's just a symbolic number there could be millions there where are they going to live if they live with Christ if they actually have properties in his kingdom because isn't that what the promise is that you're going to inherit the land with Abraham that he saw Abraham was going to be there it's that land it's not anywhere else in the world so there's an inheritance and that inheritance involves real estate and that real estate Abraham actually looked at has been promised to Christ so this is where Amy and Dominic are going to be it's where all the rest of us are going to be in the joys and special privacy of the marriage that we have with that land this is his location this is at the heart of everything we believe about the promises to Abraham north, south, east and west so then if you kind of just like carry this forward to a geographic to me what is an obvious geographic confinement it's like an island if the whole thing is the prince's portion now if I were going to change have an earthquake and turn all this into parks and make the desert blossom as a rose and make the mountains beautiful again grow all kinds of

124. 47:11

     cedars of Lebanon and trees and wells of forests and streams and animals and just make it as beautiful as the Garden of Eden and give it to Christ and his bride and who knows how many people will be among those who are with Christ in the privacy of his prince's portion I do that now it's not up to me and I don't have any part I don't have any say in how this is going to all come out I'm just saying this to me looks like a logical property for that outcome and it happens to be about one and a half million square miles in terms of its presence in the world wouldn't it make sense for Christ and his bride to have a property that is kind of centrally located in the world and is private being surrounded almost on four sides with water there's the king's highway that goes over to Assyria and Assyria and Egypt are also going to be among those that are blessed in that time but the prince's portion is a very special place well here's what Dr. Thomas said about that I don't know if that's big enough to read but I'll read it to you he was looking at a map too when he wrote Elpis Israel and he said on the map before me there are four rivers which flow together at a length from and at a length form a river which falls into the Persian Gulf this indicates the country called Eden which is watered by these rivers this country in after ages came to be denominated the garden of the Lord and the kings

125. 48:33

     who reigned in it the trees of Eden and all that was sort of prophetically metaphorical of the time in the kingdom when it will be the garden of the Lord and the oaks of righteousness or the trees of righteousness spoken of in Isaiah 60 will actually be the kings of this world so that the name of it came to be applied more especially as the future paradise is to occupy a considerable portion of its ancient limits in the Septuagint the word garden listen to how if you wander into the deeper realms of your faith and you just let the vision start to fill in its details what wonderful things you see in the Septuagint the word garden is transferred without translation paradise or paradise is a Persian word adopted into the Greek and expressed in Hebrew as the word pardes it signifies a park a forest or preserve a garden of trees of various kinds a delightful grove it is found in these texts so he's thinking alright so Jesus said to the servant I'm telling you right now I'm telling you today I'm going to pronounce judgment on you you will be with me in paradise paradise is spoken elsewhere in these of elsewhere in these texts I made me gardens or paradises and orchards and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits and a garden enclosed of paradise as my sister spouse what a beautiful song that is the latter text is representative of that pardon of Eden over which Solomon reigned and metaphorical of its beauty fertility and glory when the heir of the vineyard the greater than Solomon

126. 50:01

     shall come to Zion and marry the land of Eden as defined in the everlasting covenant with Abraham we are talking about a beautiful tract of land in the prince's portion we're talking about a dwelling place for Christ and his bride what would that look like up close well it would look like paradise it would like Eden restored isn't that the idea there would be fertile gardens and your bones will flourish like an herb Dominic's bones break forth into singing oh mountains for the Lord has comforted his people the Lord will comfort Zion he will comfort Zion he will comfort all her waste places there will be blossoming deserts pristine coastlines vast parks can you imagine if God's brought you to this land what you see here and said well this is the prince's portion this is your inheritance this is what Abraham saw if not literally by vision beautiful dwellings did you ever consider that you will have a dwelling in the kingdom you will not just going to be standing around a throne forever I think a lot of us think about going back someplace in the world being sent there to govern the cities of the world but there's going to be a place for us in the kingdom in the prince's portion to live it will be a dwelling and it will be a very beautiful dwelling there will be vineyards why will there be vineyards because there will be wine on the leaves well refined you know what leaves are not branches leaves are the residue of the grapes as they fall to the bottom of wine barrels when the wine is fermenting

127. 51:50

     so if there's wine on the leaves well refined in the kingdom there are wine barrels where vineyards have made wine and that's the wine that we will eat and drink in the feast of fat things with Jesus around his table when he eats and drinks with us again in our marriage to him so God said to his son ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage the ends of the earth your possession just ask me I'll give you the whole earth sorry what does all that mean without the retrieval of life without bringing the bringing back of those ones that we've loved so what Jesus said God says in the picture God says to Jesus ask of me kind of like what he said to Solomon I'll give you whatever and Solomon says I want wisdom so he said okay wisdom and I'll give you everything else too so he says to Jesus ask of me and I'll give you the ends of the earth for your possession instead he asked life of thee and thou gavest it him even length of days forever and ever not his own he sacrificed his own life so that when he asked God for your life God would give it to him he sought your life he seeks Dominic's life he holds all of our lives in his hand and he will present us to his father as living sons and daughters of God in the day of his appearing that is his crown that is his glory and that is the fullness and richness of our hope your life engraved in the palms of his hands

128. 53:45

     Dominic's life and on this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things a feast of wine on the lees of fat things full of marrow of wine on the lees well refined and he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations he will swallow up death and victory the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth but the Lord has spoken it and it shall be said in that day oh this is our God we have waited for him that's getting to be quite the understatement isn't it and he will save us this is the Lord we have waited for him and we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation all leaves