What You Can Learn From Death Before You Die

If my grandmother was alive, this would have been her 100th birthday this week. It also marks the second anniversary since the funeral of my dad. And I also, as I emailed, I think, found out that one of my good friends has, I've known he's had cancer, but it became obvious actually what happened was, I don't know if I put this, I don't think I put this in the email, my friend found out that he is one of 60 people in the United States this year who will get this particular form of cancer.

60. So I thought about that for a moment and I go, that's kind of like winning the lottery in reverse, like what? Five times? Ten times? I mean, what are the odds? There'll be a lot more lottery winners across the country than 60 this year.

And the doctor said, you know, they had him on some medication. They told him they knew what they were doing. They were going to be able to resolve this. And then they found out that the DNA-specific treatment that they were giving him was not going to work.

So he called me Sunday afternoon and, you know, told me the news. And I already knew because Eddie had told me on Saturday. But nevertheless, it was hard. And I said, it was funny when he called because I just pulled off the road.

It was up in Northern California in the mountains. And I pulled off the road because I was driving back to San Francisco to get an airplane to fly to Bakersfield, where you can't always fly into, but I was flying in there.

And I pull off the road to go to Starbucks. And actually, I was just getting a refresher, which means, you know, one of those lemonade-y kind of things, but chock full of green tea. And that's exactly when he called.

And I said, Don, I'm about to get some. I just pulled into Starbucks. He said, well, call me back in a couple minutes. Get yourself some coffee because it's going to be a while. And so we talked. We talked for a while.

And I said, well, I'm in Northern California. He goes, what are you doing there? And I told him. And he said, well, you know, kind of like, well, that's cool. And I said, I'd like to come see you. So I drove down there on Monday to go see him.

What do you say to a friend who knows that he has three to six months to live, tops, and who's already weak? I mean, even when I just heard him on the phone. He's 57 years old. And, you know, he sounded like he was 80.

Cancer is a very difficult disease. What do you say? And I just thought, I've been thinking about it all week. I mean, this is in part things I learned during the situation with my dad, but also just in talking with Don.

Death Is Painful for Those Left Behind

So let's get to my points. I have several of them. This is what we should know about death before death. It's good to know about death before you die. Number one, death is painful. And by that, I don't mean that necessarily you're going to suffer immensely before you die.

I just mean it's painful, especially for those who are left behind, those who remain living. Let's look at John 11, 28 to 36. John 11, 28 to 36, a familiar passage to us. Lazarus is dead. Jesus is en route and now has arrived.

Mary and Martha are there. Martha gets the news. And we pick it up in verse 28, talking about Martha. Would somebody read 28 to 36 of John 11, please? Verses 28 to 36. Looking for a hand. Bruce. What we see in this passage is, I mean, first of all, we would see that there were people there consoling.

We see a lot of weeping. We understand this if we've been to a funeral, but can I, true confession time, I think the, I'm pretty confident, the first funeral I went to was when I was 34 or 35. Some of you might think that's shocking.

It is kind of shocking. Although, you know, my, both of my grandfathers were dead before I was born. Therefore, I didn't have their funerals to go to. My grandmothers would die much later, so I hadn't gone to their funerals.

And I just, it was just something my parents, I guess you could say I led a sheltered life in that sense. I never went to a funeral. I do remember handling what we call not so touchingly, not so warmly in the business, dead body calls.

I remember one in particular. I went to this house and a young man, he was probably 27, 28 years old, arrived and I met him at the door. And I said, I'm sorry to tell you that your father is dead. His father, he thought, was asleep on the couch when he went to work that morning.

Well, his father wasn't sleeping. His father had actually died. And that young man broke down. And I broke down. It's hard. Death is hard. There's an empathy, a natural empathy that goes with those who suffer loss.

And I think that's why we see in verse 35, Jesus wept. Why? Because of the empathy he had for the suffering they were going through. We could argue, you know, well, it's because of their lack of faith.

I don't really know. I think he was deeply moved in his spirit by what he saw, by the sadness that he saw. Death is painful and that pain is not necessarily physical. It is for us. It is very painful, those who remain behind.

To Die in Christ Is Better Than Any Life We Can Imagine

Number two, to die in Christ is better than any life we can imagine. And to die apart from Christ is worse than any fate we can imagine. Let's look at Philippians 1, verses 19 to 23. Familiar words to us.

Philippians 1, verses 19 to 23. I blame it on the jet lag. What is it that Paul's contemplating here? What is it that he's... Okay, but why would he be thinking about that? Not because he dropped his bottle cap on the floor.

Yes, Gary. Okay, he was in prison. Didn't know his fate. Didn't know whether he was going to be put to death or not. And he said, I don't know what I shall do. My life is near an end. I am in great fear.

No. I think I mentioned it in my email. Some of you may not have read it. Some of you don't get the wonderful emails that I send. Sorry. No. When I got on that plane, well, it wasn't the plane to Bakersfield, although that was fairly scary because we were super packed in.

It was a small plane. Leaving Bakersfield in a couple of days and going to Phoenix. That was an adventure. It was one of those flights. I don't know if you've been on one of these. I had a couple of them where it seems like the air is so turbulent that I'm looking around and I'm expecting the flight attendants who were, in my mind, foolishly walking around, I expect them to bounce up and hit the ceiling because it's just going...

Well, this woman who's next to me, and by the way, when I got on the airplane, I said hi to her. And I don't remember exactly why I said this because she responded in some sense to me. And she reeked of cigarettes, which automatically is a big wall for me.

I don't know why. Probably because my dad smoked so much. But I said to her, you know, well, what do you do? She said something and I said, you know, what do you do? And she goes, it's a long story. And she didn't want to talk.

It was obvious. So I just thought, okay, fine. And I'm just reading or doing whatever I was doing. And then the plane started doing this thing. And she was just going, and her eyes are getting bigger.

And she's just kind of like, she's expressing fear. She thought for sure that plane was going to go down. She kind of looks at me and she's like, you know, well, aren't you afraid? And I said, yes, I am.

I'm very afraid for the other people on this plane. I said, I know where I'm going. Do you know where you're going? And she says, well, what do you mean? And so I began talking about Christ. And she said, well, I'm a Christian.

And I said, good. And I finished giving her the gospel anyway. And then we started talking about, you know, her situation in life and why she didn't want to talk about what she was doing. It's because of, you know, she'd just been through a divorce and a lot of pain and all these kind of things.

And so we were talking and, you know, and I'm just talking to her about the things that she ought to be doing in her life if she belongs to Christ and how she's plugged into a local church and how she probably needed to get discipled because she didn't really know very much.

And so when we got off the plane, she just said, I thought I had to rush off. So I was just like, you know, I'm going to have to rush off because I've got another plane to go catch. I didn't know that I was going to spend two hours on the tarmac in Phoenix.

But she said, well, you know, I'm just kind of thankful that God put you here because I felt like my mission there was just to calm her down but also to preach the gospel to her. All that to say that having that mindset that you can just say, you know what, I'm fine.

I'm okay with it. Did I want to die that day? Well, not particularly. But if I did, I just think about my life and I'm going, okay, this is what I deserved. This is what the Lord gave me. Not only forgiveness of sins, which would be great, but everything in addition to that.

I have nothing to complain about. God has blessed me in every way. And so am I ready to depart? Well, yes, in that sense. What more could I ask for? And I'm certainly ready to go die because it's better, Paul says.

And that's just a, that's an awkward thing. You know, you think about the other, I don't know what there were on the plane, maybe 40 people, 50 people, whatever it was, 60 people. Are they all ready to go?

I don't think so based on the way they were gasping, getting worried. That's our concern. And, you know, have you ever thought about that? You know, the plane really started going down. I'm going, how do you do that?

If it starts going, you can't stand up because I don't think gravity would really allow that. But, you know, do you just start, you know, trying to shout above the din probably. Use your big boy voice as the DIs in the academy used to yell at us.

Use your big boy voice. Listen to what Spurgeon talks about, what he says about how we should view life and death. How brief the distance between life and death. In fact, there is none. Life is but death's vestibule.

Our pilgrimage on earth is but a journey to the grave. Those are encouraging words. And that's why I'm here this morning is just to encourage you. Listen, the pulse that preserves our being beats our death march.

And the blood which circulates our life is floating it onward to the depths or the deeps of death. Today, we see our friends in health. Tomorrow, we hear of their decease. We clasp the hand of the strong man but yesterday.

And today, we close his eyes. Life is short. Preach the gospel. I was singing the other day. I mean, you think about all kinds of bizarre things. But, you know, I'm reading about my grandmother. It would have been 100 years.

And I thought, OK, when her grandmother was 100 years old, if you go back far enough, you just think, OK. When she was 100 years old, it's very likely, well, or when she was born. I'll back up a little bit.

It's very likely that Napoleon would have been romping around in Europe. And I just thought, it's just bizarre to think, you know, when we think of Napoleon, we go, that was so long ago. Not really. It's not that long ago.

My grandmother's parents would have known about the Civil War. I mean, it's just strange to think how, you know, everything seems so ancient to us. But it's not that far removed. And you think, well, Steve, you're pretty old, too.

Well, that's true. Thank you for laughing. It's amazing when we think about how short our lives are. And as we get older, believe me, you will know if you're younger than 40 in here, you recognize, or it may seem to you that life is not that short.

I remember, come on, tell the truth, in grade school, didn't it seem like those years lasted forever? They don't last very long now. I want to also turn to Mark chapter 9, verses 42 to 48. Mark chapter 9, verses 42 to 48.

And if somebody would read that. These are the words. Yeah, go ahead. That gives us a, that's the Lord talking about hell. And he gives us certainly a grim picture of it, and what we ought to be willing to sacrifice in this life to avoid it.

I was having a discussion via Facebook with my cousin just last night. One of my cousins who's in the Mormon church. You know, he's talking about Moeller, how Moeller condemned Mormonism and said they're all going to hell.

Well, that's not exactly what he said. But look at what Jesus says about hell, and you just think, that's worth warning people about. That's worth telling them that judgment is imminence. That there's something to be avoided.

And Jesus spent more time talking about hell than heaven. We know that, and yet we don't like to talk about it. But as I said, to die apart from Christ is worse than any fate we can imagine. We're not talking to my friend, and he's going to a UU church, universal Unitarian church.

And they think that everybody's going to heaven. There's a problem there. There's a problem there, and it's illustrated in Matthew 7 when we're talking about the broad gate. I like the way MacArthur pictures it, basically this way.

There's a road, and there's a sign over the road that says, this way to heaven. Everybody's happily marching along, but that's not where it goes. Everybody thinks they're going to heaven, but not everybody's going there.

Many will go to hell, and I say that with no joy whatsoever. I say that with an urgency that we need to warn people. You want to have confidence. It's not a confidence in me. I'll talk a little bit more about that tonight.

I'm going to be teaching on, you know, you might be in a cult if. And one of the things I'm going to be talking about is emphasizing even what Pastor Mike said this morning. I was talking to a woman on the second flight out of, or the flight out of Phoenix, and her theories about salvation were just bizarre.

But how do you know? It's not a confidence that I can give myself. It's a confidence born of the scripture and born of the Holy Spirit. Now let's talk about the better life. Better than any life we can imagine.

The Hope of Heaven in Christ

Let's look at Revelation 21. This is a picture of heaven, and when we see this, we just go, I want to be here. This is where I want to be. When we think about this, when we look at this picture, the things of earth are strangely dim.

Revelation 21, verses 2 to 7. Yeah, go ahead, Mark. This is recently made into a movie. Heaven is for real. No, this is the real heaven, and it's not about grandma and grandpa and siblings who died in their infancy.

This is about Christ and about His promises to us and how we will dwell with Him. Now, John had this vision. Paul, of course, what, saw heaven, the third heaven, wasn't allowed to speak of it. But going back to what he said there in Philippians 1, he said, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by my life or by death, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Why? Because he knew what was in front of him. He didn't have this vision in Revelation 21, but he knew. He knew what heaven was like. Listen to Spurgeon again. These are pretty impactful words. Call no man happy until he is dead, because the life that is to come, if that be miserable, hell, shall far outweigh the highest life of happiness that hath been enjoyed on earth.

To estimate a man's condition, we must take it in all its length. Again, if we think about the brevity of life, when we're going to talk about how happy people are now, utterly in light of eternity, that's meaningless.

Spurgeon goes on, he says, we must not measure that one thread which reacheth from the cradle to the coffin. We must go further. We must go from the coffin to the resurrection and from the resurrection on throughout eternity.

To know whether acts are profitable, I must not estimate their effects on me for the hour in which I live, but for the eternity in which I am to exist. I must not weigh matters in the scales of time. I must not calculate by the hours, minutes, and seconds of the clock, but I must count and value things by the ages of eternity.

That's strong. And again, just kind of gives us the difference between eternity with Christ and apart from Christ. Point number three, death is our enemy. Death is our enemy. Death is also our just punishment.

We know that from Genesis chapter three. Pastor Mike just went through this a few weeks ago, so I'll just read it briefly. And to Adam he said, God said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.

For out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return. Part of the curse, part of the fall is death. Death is the right punishment or is God's punishment on us. We will all die. We can go through Genesis where, what is it, Genesis five, so and so died and then died and died and died and on and on and on it goes.

What was it, four? Christ has defeated death. That's the good news. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 15, 24 to 26. 1 Corinthians 15, 24 to 26 and would somebody read that please? Yeah, go ahead Gary. The last enemy is death.

That's the last one and ultimately that is what Christ defeated by being raised from the dead. What did Paul say, you know, if of all men he would be the most pitied or we are to be the most pitied, if what?

If Christ is not raised from the dead but thanks be to God he is raised. He is risen indeed. So death is our enemy, Christ has defeated it. Death is also imminent even as alluded to by Spurgeon, imminent meaning close.

Listen to James 4 .14 again, very familiar. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. How are you today? Not bad for a mist but that's the truth.

You know, we set all our plans up and that's what this passage talks about. It talks about, you know, we may do business here or we make our plans and then all of a sudden we're gone. What did Jesus, when he gave the parable of the rich man in the barn, you know, the man is going to tear down his barn and build a new one because he's filled it.

You brilliant man, you have planned accurately for your future. No, you fool. This very night your soul is demanded of you. We don't know. And why is that important? Why would that impact our thinking?

Help us keep an eternal perspective on everything we do. And may I suggest that if you're in Christ, how much more should you have that eternal perspective when you're going to visit somebody who is going to die?

Even when they're not going to die, they're going to die. Every person you meet is going to die, right? It's one each. We all get one mother, one father, and one death. We just don't know when it's coming.

And we have to live in light of its eminence, its closeness, its nearness. And we need to encourage others to think that same way. Number five, if you can, and this was one of the things I talked to my friend Don about, close all your accounts.

This is something that I really, I think I learned with my dad. Let's see if I can get through this here. One of the things, and I don't remember how this came up, but my stepmom said to me, there's something that your dad has always wondered.

I mean, my dad was in the hospital. I didn't know he was a couple weeks away from dying. There's something he's always wondered about. And she told me. I think my brother and I were like 11 and 12, and my dad said, do you want to come live with us?

And I remember the council that my brother and I held. I think it was in the backyard of our house, and we decided that we did. So we were like, okay, we're going to go live with dad. Then I remember turning to my brother and saying, what are we going to tell mom?

That was the last we ever talked about it. And my dad never inquired, and we never went to dad and said, you know, we don't know what to do, and so nothing changed. I have to say, it was a blessing to talk to my dad about that and to just clear that with him.

I would encourage folks that, you know, it's a good reminder, too, of the other side of it. You know, if there are things that you need to straighten out with people, wouldn't you like to, if it's something you need to ask forgiveness for, maybe even, I didn't need to, but if you need to ask forgiveness of them, wouldn't you like to do that before you die?

Wouldn't you like there not to be, you know, anybody at your funeral who says, well, personally, I'm glad he's gone? That would be a horrible thing. So I think those are good things to do, to try to do that.

Preach the Gospel While You Can

Number six, our focus can easily get misplaced solely on the dying person or on the illness. It's easy to feel sorry for yourself. Why me? Think about Don, you know, one out of 60 this year. That's rough.

But ultimately, it has to be on those who are going to be left behind. One of the things that Don said to me, and I'll try to move faster, one of the things that he said to me was, you know, my wife wants to hire a videographer to come in and kind of interview me.

And he says, for what? You know, there's nothing I want to say, nothing that I want captured, you know, for all time and eternity. And I said, Don, it's not for you. I said, I personally would love to have a message from my dad to be able to hear his voice.

So I go, you need to think about your kids. Number seven, what is the appropriate time to preach the gospel? It's only, as Pastor Mike was saying this morning, when you get that liver shiver. When you feel it, you go, which side is your liver on?

I don't even know. It's the right, okay. Oh, well, there it goes, you know, time to preach the gospel. When's the right time? You know what I love to hear? You know, it's been so encouraging to get little updates about Dottie and, you know, to just hear the things that she's saying, even as, I mean, who knows, she could be around for years.

But it's good to hear people testifying of Christ even in their infirmity, their illness, even as maybe they're approaching death. That's good. But also, you know, think about yourself. You know, if you're dying, would it be a good thing to preach Christ to yourself?

Yes. Why? Because you want to live, again, in light of eternity, in light of all that he has given you, which, if you just, if you set every physical blessing aside, you just think, I've been forgiven of every sin I've ever committed.

Christ has delivered me from hell. I have to be pretty happy with that. And here's what I would say, too. Here's the flip side. How would you even wrap your head around the fact that you went to go visit somebody who was sick or dying, or maybe not even dying, but just somebody that you felt was not saved and needed to hear about Christ, you didn't do it, and then you read in the paper the next day or you heard from a friend the next day that that person had died.

Like Spurgeon says, you know, we see people in their strength and all their might, and then we just find out they're dead. People die. That's what we do. It's sad, it's discouraging, but we don't know.

The one regret you will carry with you is not preaching the gospel. Again, I don't want to brag because I don't deserve it. I am grateful for all the times in the last few weeks my dad was alive that he heard the gospel, and not just for me.

I think about, you know, when he started to take a turn for the worse about how Tony went up there, my friend Tony, went up there and preached the gospel to him. I think about the group from a church.

I don't even know how faithful to the gospel they are. But I was sitting there on a Saturday, and the phone rang. It was somebody I'd never, I didn't recognize their voice at all. He said, this is so-and-so, and we're from such-and-such a church in Bakersfield, and we're visiting people at this place where my dad was, what do they call it, rehabbing or whatever.

You know, he was out of the hospital and supposedly getting stronger. It was the place where he would die in about less than a week. And they put me on the speaker phone. They said, we understand you're a pastor, and your dad told us that, and so we thought we'd call you.

And I said, that's great, thank you for calling. And I just went all through the gospel again because I was on speaker phone. My dad was listening. I don't regret the number of times he heard the gospel.

I pray that he believed. I don't know. When is the appropriate time to preach the gospel? Every time you can, whenever there's a pause in the conversation, until they finally just say, stop preaching Christ to me.

Honoring the Lord in Death, Funerals, and Hope

Number eight, honor the Lord. Honor the Lord, what do I mean by that? I think you want to honor the Lord in how you die. I think you want to think about these things. Again, I go back to Dottie and about how lacking in physical strength, but abundantly being supplied in spiritual strength and talking about how great a Savior she has.

Many people like that. But think about what a testimony that could be to people, you know, if you're in a hospital, you're surrounded by those who are used to, well, I think even of Sarah DiPietro. We visited her, I think, on, was it Monday or Sunday?

Monday, maybe. And then in just a day or two, she was gone. But when Janet leaned over to greet her, I could hear Sarah say, I'm ready to go. That's got to have an impact on the hospital staff. Not, you know, can you ease my pain and suffering?

You know, this is terrible. Can I please have, you know, the hostess Twinkies or whatever it was, you know, whatever unreasonable demands, you know, you might want to make at the end. All she was thinking about was her Savior, the confidence she had in Him.

We don't die as those who have no hope. We have hope. We don't fear death because to die is better than to live. We also need to honor the Lord in how we treat those near death. We never know when someone is actually going to pass, but the best thing we can do, again, I say this all the time, but think about this.

Have you ever been mad at someone who preached the gospel to you? I never have been. Whenever that happens, I'm thankful for it, and I hope that that continues to be the case for me as long as I live, including even as I'm dying.

We also want to honor the Lord in our funerals and the plans that we make. You know, I've been at some funerals that were not Christ-exalting, and I've been at some that were very Christ-focused, Christ-centered.

I mean, why would we want to sing stupid songs? I have no idea. We want to sing songs that honor Christ, that are gospel-centered. We want to preach Christ and Him crucified. Why? Because the funeral, as much as we want it to be about the dead person, it's not about the dead person.

It's about the people who are left behind, so is everything else. You know what I missed most of all this year at Easter? I mostly missed leading Christ to rose. I think and I hope for us, for each one here who loves Christ, when we sing that.

I mean, I'm sorry, but it happens to be one of my favorite songs, and I don't just sing it at Easter. Resurrection Sunday. Why? Because that's the central hope that we have. What separates Christianity from every other religion?

We have a risen Savior who lived a perfect life, died for our sins, and was raised from the dead. When we sing, He arose, it ought to stir our hearts. We don't want to shout it at the top of our lungs.

Christ arose. Our hope is built on that. In death, as in life, we want to proclaim that truth. Christ arose, and because He arose, death is defeated. Christ is victorious. And we, being in Christ, are most blessed.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, would you teach us, through your Word, through your Spirit, to live as if life is a vapor, to understand the urgency of preaching the gospel, preaching the gospel to ourselves, to those that we believe are in Christ, to those that we're not sure if they're in Christ or not, understanding not only that you are sovereign, but that we are responsible, that you won't throw us flashing signs.

We are and remain at your command and under your command to preach Christ and Him crucified. Father, strengthen us, undergird us, keep us singularly focused on what lies in front of us, the glories that are ours in Christ Jesus, not because of what we have done, but because of what He did.

Let us proclaim those glories and those truths to others, we pray. In Christ's name, amen.