Stanley, Paul's dad, has written some poems. They are so fitting for this occasion, and I want to read them. Both of them are addressed to the children. Before I read them, I want to tell you some of my own stories.
This is a celebration of Sara and Philip's lives, and I thank God for the brief time that I got to know both of these children and the way that they made a special impression on our home. Camille and Sara were good friends and loved to play together. Many a time Sara spent the night at our house, and I can still see her--Paul talks about how she could handle herself with the boys, but she also had this princess side. She was very feminine and dainty, and that is why she said, "Daddy, I don't want to get saved in the pool. Daddy, let's go someplace proper." I can still see her coming down the stairs in her favorite dress-up outfit, a leopard-skin gown. She would come down with her hands pushed out just like a little princess. But that is not the only way she came down our steps. Camille and Sara one night decided they were going to try a different way of coming down our hardwood floor steps. They got a sleeping bag, and both tucked themselves inside of it and slid from the top to the bottom--all the way down those stairs. As all the parents came running in thinking someone was sure enough hurt or had fallen down the stairs, we were met by the giggles and laughter of little girls, and they went right back up to the top and started it again.
Sara's memories will always stay in our home. I think of her last day on earth and how God many times gives us the grace to go on and gives us things that we remember and looking back on it, they are so precious. Sunday morning back in children's church Sara was always one who didn't have many prayer requests--she was the princess--maybe that wasn't "proper" to her, and she didn't give a lot of prayer requests. I remember that PJ was always the prayer request man--he always had something he wanted to tell us. This morning, however, Sara raised her hand, and she said, "I want you to pray for my family." This was the Sunday before the Lord took her on Monday evening. Then Sunday night she stood here in our children's choir and she stepped down to quote a verse. Of all the verses that she knew, all the verses she could have quoted, she said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." Then that night going over to Grandmother's house and there around the table of food and in the living room, she went around the room and she hugged everybody's neck and she said, "I just want to tell you all I love you." She said this in her little princess way, and then she went galloping off. She said, "I just want to tell my family I love them," not knowing that 24 hours later the Lord was coming to get her, and that is the last that we would see little Sara. Let me read this poem. It is a beautiful poem that Stanley has written. (Click here to read Sara's poem.)
Stanley also wrote a poem for Philip, and, as you have heard, Philip had this mischieviousness about him. Oh, you could see it in his eyes. Before he ever did anything, you knew it was coming. You didn't know exactly what it was, but it was coming. I kept him many times in the nursery, and you just got to the place where you had had enough, and you were getting ready to say, "Philip, that's it, I'm telling your dad," and he would give you that smile that he always had, that heartwarming smile, and you would say, "OK, one more chance." Philip was always the negotiator--I can see Paul time and time again heading to the bathroom, Philip with that finger up, negotiating with dad, "But Dad, just wait...just a minute, one more thing, Dad."
Philip had swooned the heart of my younger daughter. They were bound to get married. They never knew if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but they knew they were going to get married. One of our children's church workers told me that on Wednesday nights when they would go into the gym and play, all the other children would gather around for the game, but Philip and my little girl Claudia would take off alone. They would start walking around the gym. He had watched this for several weeks, and he finally decided to find out what they were doing. So he followed them one night, and they were looking for bugs. As little children do, they went around and they would look for bugs and they would play with a bug and they would pick a bug up and they would poke the bug, and he said every time you could hear Claudia scream, "No, Philip, don't!" and then you could see Philip go squish. They would look up, and they would say, "OK, let's go find another bug." Time and time again they would do this.
I thank God for the life that I met in Philip. We prayed in the hospital, anchoring our souls to Matthew 18:19: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." We held onto that verse, and then when Philip died, I know the question comes to your mind, Why? Is that verse not a verse of promise of prayer? You better believe it is. Is that verse not true? Yes, it is true, but you see, in the verses before that, Jesus had gathered the children around Him. He talked about the children and their humility that you have to have when you get saved and of the simplicity of salvation. He said in Matthew 18:14: "Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." I remember Philip lying on a hospital bed perishing. We wouldn't want him there forever. We wouldn't want him suffering any more. What you have to realize is I can't pray against God's will. Many times we pray selfishly. We want Philip here. We want him to stay, but the Bible says that God is good to his little children, to his sheep, and I know that God that night looked down on our prayers and said, "No, I am going to answer this one--no. That's not good for Philip. What's good for Philip is for me to bring him home." Listen to this poem that Stanley wrote. (Click here to read Philip's poem.)
[Here the song "Wish You Were Here" was sung, and Pastor Fishel continued with the following comments:]If we had a telephone that we could reach Heaven and could call Sara and Philip and ask them to come back, they would say, "No, no, I'm not coming back down there. It's too wonderful here. God's been too good to me to give me a wonderful place like this. I'm not going back to where I experienced all that suffering and pain."
I want to thank the men at Davis Funeral Home for their help with the family and for the way that they have arranged all the details and for the way that they have helped Paul and Rebecca go through this. I also want to thank our church family for the way that you have reached out to the families of Paul's family that have come into town--giving them places to stay and fixing them food. You have been kind and gracious and loving, and I want to thank you for that, church. It means a lot at a time like this. I also want to thank the friends that have gathered here. You can see that there are so many that the church is full. I want to thank you for your caring and I want to thank you for your phone calls and cards, and I want to remind you that after today those things are still needed. The caring and the love is still needed after today. Let's continue it as friends of this family. I want to thank the family for your kindness and your prayers. I want to thank you for being here. It means so much that all of you have come to be a part of this. I want to thank the grandparents for your love and patient hours at the hospital. I appreciate everything you have done. I want to thank Paul and Rebecca--for being a good dad and for giving them a home they could be proud of and for being a dad that they could be proud of. For showing them love. Rebecca, you were the model mother. You loved those babies, and everybody knew it. I want to thank you for doing that. You gave them a wonderful life--a patient mother and a loving father. I want to thank you for what you have done in the last week--the way you have been by their side and for the way that you have been there for PJ. I want to thank you for your goodness.
This is a celebration of the lives of these two young people, and the only comfort we can find in a time like this has to come from God's Word. It cannot come from the lips of man, it cannot come from the philosophies of men, it has to come from God Himself Who knows the beginning from the end. In John 14 Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." I want to tell you that in all of this, as you sit in a local, independent Baptist church, many of you may have the question in your mind: Can you still tell me that God is good when there are things like this that happen? Can you still tell me that God is good? Can you look at something like this and tell me that God is good? Yes, I can. He is good because 2000 years ago He sent His Son to die on the cross of Calvary so that when these two young children bowed on their knees and asked for a Savior to forgive them of their sins, there would be somebody there. God is still good because of the Savior that He sent. Just so they would have somebody to believe in and to call on to have their sins forgiven so that they could go to Heaven. God is good--He sent Christ to this earth.
He is good because He called these two children to salvation through His precious Holy Spirit, and then when they asked, He sealed them by the Holy Spirit and redeemed them forever so that when death came (and we didn't know when it would come, but the Bible says, "It is appointed unto man once to die"), Sara and Philip would be sealed by the Holy Spirit, and they would find themselves absent from the body and present with the Lord. Because of their security, God is still good. The Bible tells me in II Corinthians 5, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." It also says, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Is God good? Yes, He's good. EVen though we don't understand the things that we are going through, God is still good. He saved these two children and put them in a loving home and gave them a mom and dad that cared about them. God is good. I can still stand today and proclaim that my God that I serve, He is good.
I want to help those of you that are here that are followers of Christ. Like me, you may stand and ask the question, Why? You may look at this and say, Now I know that God is good. In Genesis the Bible says that He is good and "Will not the judge of all the earth do right?" Somehow this is right? I don't understand it. I can't help but ask the question, Why? Why? You remember a man named Job in the Bible who lost ten of his children at one time and lost all his wealth on the same day. Job asked that question. For several chapters Job began to ask God questions about why. Why are you not here, God? I can't find you in this darkness. Job asked why over and over again, and God answered Job, not in the way that we thought an answer would come. God answered Job in chapter 38 when He talks to Job and He says, Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? What are the foundations of the earth fastened on? By the way, Job, tell me about the seasons. How did I set the seasons of the earth in order? For two chapters God begins to ask Job questions. He never answers Job's question of why. He goes through all these things, and Job begins to realize that God really is in control, and there is no way he can fathom or understand what God is doing. There are some things that happen in life that we don't have the answers to and may never have the answers to. Dr. Dobson wrote in his book When God Doesn't Make Sense: "Clearly the Scriptures tell us that we lack the capacity to grasp God's infinite mind or the way He intervenes in our lives. How arrogant of us to think otherwise. Romans indicates that God's judgments are unsearchable and His ways past finding out. Similar language is used in I Corinthians when He says, "For who has known the mind of God the Lord that he may instruct him?" Clearly, unless the Lord chooses to explain Himself to us, which often He does not, His motivations and His purposes are beyond the reach of mortal man. What this means in practical terms is that many of our questions, especially those that begin with Why? have to remain unanswered for the time being." The Bible tells me in Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God." It also tells me in Proverbs that the glory of God is concealed in a thing.
Though we may not understand or ever know the reasons why, we know that God loved these two and that God was good to both of them, and He has been good to the family. If you are here and you are a believer and this has shaken your faith, I want to say that your faith in God should not be shaken at all. He is still in control, and He still understands, and He still knows the hurt. But for some reason, God chose to take these two little babies out of our church and out of this family and out of our lives for a little while.
I want to tell you a story about a little boy who was on the beach and began to dig a hole. He dug a pretty good size hole with a sand bucket. A preacher was walking down the beach and saw this little boy running from the ocean to this little hole that he had dug. The little boy was taking water out of the ocean and pouring it into this hole. When he would pour the water in, of course the water just disappeared into the sand. The little boy would run back as fast as he could and get another bucket of water. The preacher came up and said, "Son, what are you doing?" The little boy said, "I want to take that ocean and put it into my hole." For me to understand the mind of God is like taking the ocean and putting it into that hole. Fellow believers, we may never know why God works in this way. We may never understand why God did what He did, but I am telling you that I can hold onto this Book and the Word of God and know that God is still good, God is still right, and God still loves us.
I want to speak to the family that is bereaved. I want to tell you, Paul and Rebecca, you may look at Sara and Philip here and looking at their caskets, we know that it's better for them to go on to be with the Lord. It is better for any human being. Why, for the Christian, that's our escape. That's our way out of this life. That's the way out of the sorrows and the things that we have to go through in life. So, yes, it was better for Sara and Philip to go on, but better for Paul and Rebecca? Was it better for this family to suffer the deaths of these children and go through the pain and the agony? The Bible tells me again in Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." He also says in Romans 8:35,"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Paul said, "Nay (no), in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I may not understand Why God has done this, but I know that all things work together for good.
When I was a little boy, my mom did cross stitch, and I don't remember the times that I would sit on the floor and I would watch her in her chair pushing that needle through and pulling those colored threads back and forth through that needlework. I would look up, and underneath I would see the biggest mess of strings and knots, and I wouldn't understand what she was doing. Time and time again I would ask my mom what she was doing. She would tell me to just wait. She told me in a little while I will be done and I'll pull you up in my lap and I'll show you exactly what I am doing. You know, as I sit on this earth, I sit back and I look up at what God does sometimes, and I see a mess because I can't understand it since I am just a human being. Paul, sometimes we look up and we say, God, I don't know if You did the right thing here. I don't know if You are still in control. Rebecca, sometimes we don't understand. My mom would pick me up and put me in her lap, and as I looked down from above, I could say, Oh, I see now. There was a beautiful picture there or a phrase that she had done in that needlework. There is coming a day that God is going to pick both of you up in His lap, and you are going to look back on the past, and you are going to say, Oh, God, I see. I see now. All things did work together for the good of them that love the Lord. We may not understand today; we may not understand in this life--it is 5,000 years since Job has disappeared off the face of the earth, and I still don't know why God did to him what He did except to give us an example of a man who had patience and did not charge God foolishly but believed God even to the place where he said, Yet though He slay me, I will trust Him with my life, with everything.
I want to be a help not only to the followers of Christ and to the family that is bereaved, but those that are here that are fallen in sin. You may be here and you may be lost if you don't know Christ as your Savior. You say, this is a funeral, is this a proper time to talk about this? It's the perfect time to talk about this. There is not a funeral I do that I don't talk about these things of salvation and death and eternal life. I have been by the graveside of one mother as I led her two daughters to the Lord. I have been by the graveside of a boyfriend as I led his girlfriend to the Lord. Now is a good time to talk about it because your mind is reminded that death is sure. Death is coming. It is appointed until all men once to die. The truth is, I know that I am going to see Sara and Philip again. I know that I will hold them in my arms. I know that one day I will get that "comfortable hug" and maybe Sara will jump down off God's throne and give me one of those "jump hugs." I know that I am going to see them again and hold their hand. I know that I am going to talk to them again, not because God is good, and He is going to weigh my good against my bad one day see if it all weighs out. Not because I give my tithes to a church or because I am a member of a local Baptist church. The reason that I know that I am going to see them again is because I know that they asked Christ into their heart and I know that Christ is in my heart.
This wasn't God's plan for man. In the beginning when He created Adam and Eve, he set them in a perfect garden. There was no sin, there was no death, there was no sickness, no car wrecks, no drunk drivers. God's plan for man was for them to live there forever in a beautiful garden. But sin came in, and Satan messed all those things up. God knew all along because He had a plan, and He knew that he was going to send a Redeemer named Jesus one day to die on the cross for our sins. In doing so, He gave me and you a way to get back to that perfect state. God looked down at Adam and EVe, and in His brokenheartedness said, It is not over; I am sending One that will come and redeem you from this sin. If you will trust in Him and will believe in Him, then you and I can have it just like it was supposed to be. Sara and Philip prayed and asked Christ to come into their heart. I am assured by the the Word of God and Psalm 23 when He says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...thou art with me." When Sara died in that accident, Jesus Christ Himself came and held out a nail-scarred hand and said, "Sara, come on, sweetie. Let's just go home." When Philip died because of the damage in the wreck, when Philip's little life stopped, Jesus Christ Himself came down and held out another nail-scarred hand and He said, "Come on, Philip. I've got somebody waiting on you. In fact, I have got several people waiting on you. Aunt Sharon's been asking about you guys, and she's waiting on us by the gate, and Grandpa Jim is there. We're going to go on, and we're going to play a little while. Mom and Dad will be along soon, and your friends will be here soon." Jesus came Himself and got them--not because they were members of a church, not because they memorized Scriptures or sang in the choir, but because they had Jesus Christ in their heart. I will see them again because I am a Christian and Jesus Christ has promised me a home forever in Heaven.
You may say, What if I am not a Christian? I am not one to lie to you. There is no purgatory, there is no second chance. If you die without Christ, you will live forever in a place called Hell, and you will never see these children again. You will be separated from God, you will be separated from Heaven, you will be separated from everything good. You will suffer forever in a place called Hell because the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." Every one of us are sinners. I include myself in that. No one had to teach your son or daughter how to sin because they are born with a sin nature. It comes naturally. No parent had to sit your child down and say, Now let me show you how to lie. Let me show you how to disobey. It came naturally because the Bible says we are all sinners. The Bible also says that sin cannot enter into Heaven. Now I've got a problem. I'm a sinner and I have sinned, and sin cannot go to Heaven. So I have got to do something with my sin before I go to Heaven. God gives us the opportunity to have that sin cast upon His Son on the cross of Calvary. God gives us the opportunity to take His blood and wash all our sins away.
If you are here today and you are one that has fallen into sin, I want to tell you that there is a way that you can see these two again. There is a way that you can know for sure that you are going to Heaven. It is not by the time that you spend in church. It is not by the money that you give. I'm not asking you to join our church. I'm not asking you to give a dime. I'm not looking for those things because those things will not merit your salvation. In Romans 10:9-10, it says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." And in verse 13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." It's that simple. You say, I always thought that there were some works I had to do, surely there is something I have to do to merit Heaven. Surely it's not that simple. No, it is that simple. Listen to this. What if you got to Heaven and God had your registry, and He looks at it and says, "I am so sorry--if you would have done one more good deed, I could allow you to come in. But you are one good deed short of Heaven, and for that you will have to spend eternity in Hell." That's not fair--you would have done one more good deed. What if you got to Heaven and it depended on money, and God said, "I am so sorry--if you would have given one more dime, I could have let you in, but because you are short a dime, you are going to have to spend eternity in Hell." That wouldn't be fair! But I have found God to be fair. You would have searched through your couch and the floorboard of your truck or car to find another dime and give it to the church to make it to Heaven. But God makes it so that it is fair. Anybody that comes to the saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, anybody that learns that they are a sinner and they have to have Christ to be saved and go to Heaven, and anybody that repents of their sins and prays a simple prayer and asks Christ to come into their heart can be saved and saved forever.
You may ask do you belive this? Do you believe that that's true? Any child, any boy, any girl, any man or woman? Yes, I do, because I have done it myself, and Christ has saved me and written my name down in the Lamb's Book of Life. As a 5-year-old little boy in Hagerstown, Maryland, God spoke to my heart. I came forward in the Sunday night service and sat in the front pew. A man by the name of Butch Berman took the Bible out and read the very verses that I read to you and asked me, "Zane, would you be willing to pray and ask Christ to come into your heart?" and I said yes, I would. I prayed a sinner's prayer and asked Christ to come in, and the God of this universe came into my heart, wrote my name in the Lamb's Book of Life and sealed me unto the day of redemption. He did the same for these children. If you are not saved, the saddest part of this funeral is if you leave unsaved. The sad part is if you leave this place not asking Christ to come into your heart.
Many of you are here and are Christians. Many of you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you know for sure that you will see Sara and Philip again just as sure as you sitting here. I know that I will see them again. But some of you may need Christ as your Savior. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes at this time. Pray this simple prayer with me. As I say this prayer, I want you to repeat it. You can say it in your heart, you can say it in your mind, but you only have to say it once in faith believing.
Dear God, I am a sinner. Please forgive me of my sin. I repent of my sin and ask you to come into my heart. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. I believe that He rose from the dead the third day. I believe that He will save me. Jesus, be the Lord of my life. Save me now. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Thank you for coming and being a part of this. Family, I love you. I thank God for these two children that I got to meet. I thank the Lord for His presence here and for the way that He comforts us and the way that His Scripture comforts us. The Bible tells us in Thessalonians that we are going to see them again. Yes, He says, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds to meet the Lord in air." And then Paul says, "Comfort one another with these words." If I don't go in death, one day Jesus is going to come back in the Rapture, and I will see these two babies with Him. We will hug them again, and we will kiss them and love on them.
As we exit, there are some ballons that will be handed out--pink balloons in memory of Sara and blue balloons in memory of Philip. We will meet at the front of the Family Life Center, and we are going to release those balloons together.