Funeral

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Welcome to a collection of stories of our walk of faith in India.

One night as I finished a series of  meetings in one village, there was a young man waiting to speak with me. It was our last night and we had handed out over 200 Bibles that night. He asked for prayer and had another request. He spoke fair English and explained that his father had attended my meetings. He had believed in Jesus and had prayed that all his family would make the same choice. I do not know if it was true but someone stated he had been in the large group of people waiting to be seen by me in clinic that day. The heat was cruel to all of us. We had done our best to see all the people we could possibly see until we ourselves felt faint and sick from the heat. How I wished there was a larger medical team to handle the crowds.
The young man said that morning his father had died of heart problems. He asked for me come to where they had him and pray for the grieving family. It was 1:30 in the morning. Barbara and I and our daughters began walking behind this young man through the darkness, past many huts,  to a place in the village where there were several candles burning. There was his father covered with flowers and a blanket. No wonder it took awhile that evening for the usual crowd to gather for meeting. They were grieving this man's death in that village.  My heart went out to the sorrowing family. I prayed for God to give me comforting texts to encourage them.
The first text that came to mind was this one about the resurrection:

I Thes.4:15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive [and] remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 
4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 
4:17 Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 
4:18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words. 
Every eye will see Him come. Their father would be raised to see this event. 

Rev. 1:7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they [also] which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. 
I spoke of the glories day when Jesus would come.

Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 
I did not pray for the dead person because the Bible says they do not know anything. All is completed. Their choices have been made. The next thing they will know is when Jesus wakens them at the resurrection. I pray only for those who are living.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. 
9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any [thing] that is done under the sun.

The family appreciated as we prayed that God would comfort them in their sorrow. At 1:30 in the morning, as I walked from this funeral, I did not feel tired for Jesus was sustaining me as He was sustaining this dear family of believers in their loss.