Good News From Funeral

Each Wednesday I am the leader of the World Prayer Team in Spokane. We have been meeting together since 2003 and I have been involved since 2005. We are always praying around the world for nations and for the Good news to go forth and penetrate every unreached people group. When there are wars or places ravaged by catastrophe we pray for the missionaries, indigenous or foreigners there. We know that the Lord moves in a mighty way but the events surrounding the Queen of England’s death caught me by surprise!

We are told that there are times that try men’s souls. For me, this is a time that refreshes my soul. I did not expect it; I did not ask for it; but it happened. I receive it; I accept it. And I praise the Lord that I have been chosen for such a change in my life.

Death is not new to me. I grew up in a funeral home where death was all around my family. It is a part of the continuum of creation as a finite man.

Nor am I a “royal.” As an American citizen, I pay little attention to royal happenings. Following the Queen’s funeral, I was nudged by the Lord to explore this event. More than a nudge, I was almost shoved to watch the television coverage of September 19 from beginning to end.

Wait a minute. Something significant happened here. Between the transporting of the late Queen’s remains to Westminster Abbey for the funeral services, I noted the hymns sung, the Scriptures read, and the involvement of leaders from different churches joining those of the Church of England. This was a highly Christian service. The British Monarch was the head of the Church of England.

Television and radio broadcasters, probably greatly secular people, frequently announced that this service went around the world to billions of people.

Those in the nations saw and heard the reading of Scriptures of John 14:1-9:

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. 7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?

Jesus Christ was proclaimed! But that is not all. Before the service concluded, churchmen read I Corinthians 15:20-26 to all the world:

20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. 21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. 24 After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. 25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. 26 And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

The heart of these Christian passages concluded with I Corinthians 15:53-58:

53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. 54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. 57 But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.

Joining the Scriptures with the hymns and prayers, Queen Elizabeth II completed her journey with the proclamation of the Good News to the whole world.

These observations rattled me. I knew there was a passage in Matthew where Jesus answered his disciples. They pressed him on what “sign will signal your return and the end of the world,” Matthew 24:3. Later in that chapter, Jesus said:

“And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come,” Matthew 24:14.

Jesus spoke in the future tense over 2,000 years ago.

However, on September 19, 2022, “the Good News about the Kingdom WAS preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations HEARD it.” Those billions of people watching the Queen’s funeral on television or heard it on radio were bathed in the Good News about the Kingdom in the past tense, rather than than the future tense.

My mind was racing. Was this the first time, the last time or the 104th time the Good News was preached throughout the whole world?

I don’t know. But it happened in September.

In addition in the book of Isaiah we are told:

It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it. Isaiah 55:11.

There it is. The Good News went out to all the world. And God’s Word produces fruit in accomplishing His will.



In our minds’ eyes do we see God’s Word percolating in the hearts and minds of people from India to Indonesia, from Mozambique to Mongolia, and from Saudi Arabia to South Carolina?

Who else has recognized this event? Who is talking about it? What is happening in the lives of people, far and near?

Have you been praying for the Gospel to go to the world?

The Good New spread throughout the world on September 19, 2022.

(David Wallace is an elder at the Spokane Central Seventh-day Adventist Church in Spokane, Washington. Davidwallace539@gmail.com

All Scripture from New Living Translation