Verse number 3, it says, if a man beget a hundred children and live many years so that
the days of his years be many and his soul be not filled with good and also that he have
no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better than he.
Now I'm going to get into the untimely birth in a moment, but first I want to point out
the fact here that it gives the situation, you know, first in verses 1 and 2, we talked
about a guy who's very rich and powerful, but then he dies or he doesn't get to enjoy
it for whatever reason.
Now we're talking about a guy who's successful in another area because he begets a hundred
children, which is obviously, again, success, not necessarily in the eyes of 2021 America,
but that's because we live in a strange society that values all the wrong things and we're
an empire in decline and so we think of children as being a burden and a bad thing.
But in the Bible, children are seen as a great blessing.
I mean, even a worldly guy like Haman is bragging about the fact that he has 10 kids because
that's the way people thought back then.
And so here, this is another kind of success being described about a guy who begets a hundred
children, but yet the Bible says if he have no burial, I say that an untimely birth is
better than he.
So what's the big deal about no burial?
What's going on with that?
Well, obviously what's intended there is the idea that nobody really cares about him enough
to bury him or to have a funeral or to take his death seriously.
And look, I guarantee you there are people who die all the time where nothing much really
happens, there's not much of a funeral, maybe a couple of people show up and nobody is really
that heartbroken.
And he's basically saying that that's a sad situation.
But I want to focus in on the burial itself for a moment.
Flip over if you would to 1 Corinthians 15.
Whenever I hear about someone wanting to cremate their loved one, this is always the verse
that pops into my mind every single time.
When somebody talks about cremating someone, I think about this verse about how dishonorable
it is to have no burial.
And so that's why I would not want any of my loved ones to be cremated.
I don't want to be cremated.
I want to be buried.
Now I don't need anything fancy, just put me in a pine box and bury me under the earth.
But I do want to be buried, I don't want to be cremated.
And today it's sad because our society is now pushing cremation and part of it is just
because of the cost.
It can just be expensive, it's just cost prohibitive to bury people.
So then they just cremate people.
But Christianity teaches burial of the dead and it's the Christian thing to do to bury
people.
Okay.
Now you're turning to 1 Corinthians 15, but there's an entire chapter, Genesis chapter
23, devoted to Sarah's burial.
So it's like a big deal that's being made in the book of Genesis about burying Sarah.
And then in 1 Corinthians 15, we get a little bit of the symbolism of what burial represents
for the Christian.
It says in 1 Corinthians 15, 42, so also is the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption.
Now what does it mean to be sown?
It's talking about a seed being planted in the earth, isn't it?
It is sown in corruption, it is raised in corruption.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
And watch this, it is sown a natural body.
It is raised a spiritual body.
There's a natural body and there's a spiritual body.
And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made
a quickening spirit.
So the body is sown into the earth, obviously not literally, obviously how a person's remains
are dealt with has nothing to do with what happens to them after they die as far as their
soul is concerned.
But it's symbolic, it's not a literal seed that you're putting into the ground, but it's
symbolic that when you bury the dead body, you are symbolically planting a seed because
you believe that that person is going to rise again one day, just as when you plant a seed,
there's a new fresh plant that grows up, a new life is produced, the same thing with
the dead body that's buried in the earth because they're going to be resurrected someday.
And you're expressing your faith in that when you bury the dead.
You don't have to turn there, but Romans chapter 6 verse 4 says, therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also
should walk in newness of life.
Watch this wording, for if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we
shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.
So notice again, the word planting is used in tandem with the word burial, symbolic in
baptism, but being buried is also symbolism.
Why do we get baptized?
Why don't we do like the Presbyterians and just do something like that?
The reason why we actually baptized by immersion as Baptists is because we believe that, you
know, it symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
We're buried with him by baptism into his death.
And it says in Colossians, same thing, buried in baptism.
And so that's what that pictures.
And so we're also picturing that when we bury the dead, we're picturing the fact that it's
just a seed, it's the natural body being sown, someday the spiritual body will be raised.
So if you think about it that way, then, you know, what does cremation seem to symbolize?
I mean, it's like, it makes you think of like burning in hell or something, which obviously,
if you cremate the saved person, they're still going to heaven.
And if you bury the unsaved, they're still going straight to hell.
But what do we want to symbolize?
Do we want to be like the Hindus?
Pagan Hindus cremate their dead because they're pagans, okay, because they're not worshiping
the Lord because they're not Christian.
And the same thing with the ancient Greeks, you know, if you study ancient Greek culture,
it was all about being cremated.
They wanted to be cremated.
That was the highest honor for them is to be cremated.
And there are many other pagan cultures like that because the ancient Greeks and the Hindus,
they're all worshiping demons.
And so they have similar demonic religions and similar ideas about what happens after
death.
Of course, they believe that they were all going to Hades.
And they were right.
They were all going to Hades.
But we as Christians, you know what, we're going to heaven.
And so we should follow the Christian practice of burial.
And you know what, it hurts me to see people struggle with this because of the financial
aspects of it.
You know, it's kind of insult to injury when someone dies and you're already grieving the
loss and then you get hit with these incredible bills.
You know, you wish it was like the old days where the church had the cemetery out back
of the church, right?
But alas, I don't think the city of Tempe would like that very much because I would
do it.
I would love that, you know, that someday our church would have its own cemetery.
But you know what, we try to help people out in that situation too when we can because
of the fact that we don't want to see people cremate the children of God.
When the saints die, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of the saints.
And you know, it's precious in our sights too.
And so we like to see them buried.