Just a few days ago, a
good preacher-friend of mine went to be with the Lord. Elder Charles Walker was
only sixty-five years of age when the Lord called him home. Brother Charles was
a faithful minister, who took his divine calling to preach very seriously. He was very studious in God’s word. I vividly remember several sermons that I
was blessed to hear him preach. I would
like to share a summary of three of them with you.
One of the most moving
sermons that I have ever heard anyone preach is one that Brother Charles
preached from Hebrews 1:3 “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the
express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power,
when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high…” Brother Charles beautifully pointed out that there was no
chair among the furniture in the Old Testament tabernacle or temple. In the Holy Place there was the table of
shew bread, the altar of incense, and the seven-branched candlestick. In the
Holy of Holies there was the Ark of the Covenant, which was overlaid by the
mercy seat. Among all these sacred pieces of furniture there was found no
chair. Brother Charles explained that
this was so, because the work of the Old Testament priests was only typical.
The great Sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, had not yet done His work of
redemption. The work of Atonement was not yet complete. However, when Jesus died on the cross, this
work was perfectly finished.
The debt of the sins of
all the elect family of God had been paid in full. Perfect satisfaction had been
rendered to the justice of God. There was no more work of redemption to be
done. Therefore, the One who had perfectly
completed the work could sit down, signifying that the full
payment of the sin debt
had been accomplished. This chair was in heaven, or the true Holiest
place. Hebrews 9:27 says that the
things in the Old Testament tabernacle were “patterns of things in the heavens…”
Brother Charles rejoiced that day along
with his hearers that our Successful Savior could sit down at the right hand of
the majesty on high, because He had successfully purchased all His children
from the clutches of divine wrath. Today Brother Charles has had the infinite
privilege of seeing Christ actually sitting at the right hand of the Father!
On another occasion,
it was my privilege to hear Brother Charles preach another powerful doctrinal
sermon. As I write about these sermons
I wish I could convey to you the spirit and power in which they were
delivered. We were all lifted high
above the things of this world, and were receiving a small foretaste of the
heavenly kingdom. Brother Charles
preached this time on Jesus Christ being the Word of God. He pointed out that the function of words is
to reveal or manifest. For example, we
all have thoughts. However, others
cannot read those thoughts and cannot know what we are thinking, until we
verbalize our thoughts in words. We communicate and reveal our inmost thoughts
by means of words.
Brother Charles
beautifully showed that God is a Spirit.
He is invisible. We would never have known Him if He had not revealed
Himself to us. John 1:18 says “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” When He did
reveal Himself to us how did He do it?
He sent His only begotten Son to reveal Himself to His children. This is one of the reasons that Christ, the
Second Person in the Trinity, is called the Word of God. As Jesus told Philip
in John 14:9 “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”
Many people have
trouble understanding Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
purpose.”
Brother Charles
preached one of the most enlightening sermons on this text that I ever
heard. He believed strongly in the
sovereignty of God. He did not believe
in the pagan concepts of fortune, accident, or chance. He believed that God is the controller of
this universe to a minute detail.
However, he did not believe that God is the Author of sin. He did believe that nothing could befall a
child of God without the permission of the Father. How then to explain the seeming tragedies that often befall God’s
people?
Brother Charles
explained it this way. He said that
there are certain substances, such as strychnine, which are fatal if taken by
themselves. However, when some of these
deadly substances are mixed with other ingredients, they become powerful
medicines. Brother Charles said that
there may be many things that happen to God’s children which seem to be bad in
themselves, but that, in combination with all of life’s experiences, they
ultimately work for the good of God’s children. He acknowledged that in our present imperfect state we may not be
able to see how all this works out, but that when we get to glory we will
understand it then. This was a very
able and comforting sermon.
I thank God for the
blessing of having known Brother Charles Walker and of hearing him preach some
very able God-honoring discourses.
Brother Zack Guess