On Death and Dying (Part 1 of 2)

Death is something most of us are trying in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them, before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark and the clouds return after the rain. The writer here starts to employ a metaphor, or a series of metaphors, if you like, all related to pictures of the human body and its demise. When the keepers of the house tremble, as the hands as our lives move on, we may develop tremors, and the strongmen stoop. When the grinders cease, because they are few, inadequate occlusion. And those looking through the windows grow dim, our eyesight. When the doors to the street are closed, our ears and the sound of grinding fades. When men rise up at the sound of birds' insomnia, but all their songs grow faint.

The strange experience where you can't actually hear the birds, but you wake up in the middle of the night thinking that you hear them. When men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets, when the almond tree blossoms, white hair, and the grasshopper drags himself along, and desire no longer is stirred. Then man goes to his eternal home, and mourners go about the streets. Remember him before the silver cord is severed or the golden bowl is broken, before the pitcher is shattered at the spring or the wheel broken at the well and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the Spirit returns to God who gave it. Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher, everything is meaningless. Not only was the teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.

The teacher searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true. The words of the wise are like goads. They're collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard. Here is the conclusion of the matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Thanks be to God for his Word. We pause now and pray once again. Our gracious God, we thank you that the Bible turns us to subjects that we might seek quite naturally to avoid. And as we turn to these issues tonight, we pray for a sense of clarity and for understanding, and for a renewed interest in looking to the Bible—not simply to find information that may be a blessing or an encouragement to us, but in order that the whole of our lives may be framed in a biblical way, that our view of the world and the events in our world, globally and in our private lives, may bear testimony to the imprint and the impact of your truth in Scripture. Help us, then, to this end, we humbly pray, in your Son's name.

Amen. Well, we might easily well have read from a whole host of passages. If we were to go into the New Testament, we might read from 2 Corinthians 5, the picture there of our earthly tent being destroyed but an eternal dwelling in the heavens made and fashioned by God for us, or perhaps of 1 Thessalonians 4, or to many other places. But for us tonight, to even think of death and dying and the very process and the impact of it within the framework and context of Scripture is to immediately mark us out as a somewhat different company. Because one of the undeniable features of our contemporary culture is an unwillingness, on the part of most, to face the reality of death. Death is covered up in all kinds of ways. We have the notion, I think, that if we don't mention it, perhaps it will go away. That we identify with the classic quote from Woody Allen when he said, It's not that I'm afraid to die, it's just that I don't want to be there when it happens.

And we can all identify with that. In some ways, death is un-American. After all, as Americans, we regard it as our inalienable right to life and to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness. And death comes crashing in and spoils all that—throws a dreadful, wet blanket over all of our hopes and all of our dreams. By and large, parents do not speak to their children about death. If you're under the age of twenty, unless you lost a friend in dramatic circumstances—perhaps in a car crash or as a result of the onset of illness in their mid-teens—then the average young person has really given no thought to it at all. But one day they will stand at the grave of their mom or their dad or a close friend.

And in all places, and of all people, it ought to be Christians who are prepared to do what the secular world is unprepared to do, and that is to look death full in the face and to acknowledge that there is no way to deny it, there is no way to escape it, and therefore we need to find a way to approach it. It's a long time now since the games people play—remember the song? Oh, the games people play now, every night and every day now, never thinking what they say now and never saying what they mean. And they wile away the hours in their ivory towers until they're covered up with flowers in the back of a black limousine.

And then that wonderful chorus, Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-nee. Oh, the games people play now, talking about you and me and the games people play. But it's true! And you could argue that three decades have only reinforced the notion of the desire to quite categorically sidestep death in all of its aspects. Embalmers work diligently to make those who are no longer with us look better than they did before they left. And nice suits are set aside, and if you had a particular book you like to read, they may stick it in your hand in between your frozen thumb and your frozen first finger, so that we all may walk past you and say, My, my, he actually looks pretty good, you know. And those of us who knew you very well will say, Yeah, but he didn't look that good when he was here. But it's all part of the art of concealment.

It's all part of the art of concealment. People don't speak about graveyards. They speak about memorial parks. Look for cards to write to your friends and the loss of a loved one, and you will search in vain in the vast majority of cases for cards out with the framework of Christianity that actually tackle death head on. You'll find cards about your uncle Fred having gone upstairs, having departed for a better place, and so on and so on, but the one thing that you will find probably missing from it is any notion that this person has actually died—that they are no longer here. Funerals that used to be solemn occasions are often now occasions of gaiety and laughter and stupidity, where everybody and their uncle gets up and says whatever they want to say, as if somehow or another we were having a high school reunion. As if somehow or another people had not shed tears and agonized over the passing of this individual. As if somehow or another we could mitigate the reality, the finality, and the ugliness of the last enemy to be destroyed by having a succession of videos or a succession of people stand up and tell of how they had a wonderful time when they were on a Greyhound bus going to New Jersey in the early sixties. There is a place for that. I'm not convinced that the funeral is the place for that.

But of course, I won't be around for mine, and if anyone wants to talk about being on a Greyhound bus with me to New Jersey, then I suppose they'll be able to do it. Tom Paxton, from Greenwich Village, again in the sixties. He was there with Dylan and with all those old granddaddies now. He had an amazing song—I think he wrote it himself—called Forest Lawn. I used to know all of the words. I tried to remember them.

I couldn't get them at all. But it began, well, lay me down in forest lawn, you know. And it was a very cynical take on death. And at one point he has a little triplet that goes like this, My likeness done in brass Will stand in plastic grass, And weights and hidden springs Will tip its hat to the mourner's filing past. I want to go simply when I go, And they'll give me a simple funeral there I know. The art of concealment.

You see, there's a significant contrast between that kind of thing—and that kind of thing, I would suggest to you, has crept very easily and successfully into realms heretofore uninvaded. I have in mind, doing a funeral down in the Worcester area some years ago, and when I went there for his funeral, I was struck by the complete full, frontal acknowledgment of what was happening. And as we processed from the church building into the graveyard which was immediately adjacent to it, the plain, simple coffin was carried by members of the family. The grave had been dug, the coffin was lowered into the ground, the male members of the family took shovels and shoveled in the earth on top of the coffin, while the complete family led the gathered throng in singing hymns concerning the reality of Christ's victory over death and the resurrection. No one in that context could be anything but struck by the preparedness of those left behind to acknowledge exactly what had taken place. If, then, our society is marked by an unwillingness to face death in all of its finality, Christianity—biblical Christianity—confirms within us the fact that we are to be countercultural in this respect as in other respects—that Christianity changes the way we view everything.

Remember the famous C.S. Lewis quote, I believe in Christianity as I believe in the rising of the sun. Not simply because I can see it, but because by it I can see everything else. That, if you like, in every realistic way, to be embraced by the love of God in Jesus is a mind-altering experience. If love changes everything, surely the love of God in the Lord Jesus changes everything. Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher, writing a letter of bereavement to a friend, chose not to fill his letter with ordinary platitudes of consolation, but instead he comforted him by encouraging him to recognize the providence of God in the events that had unfolded.

And this is a quote from his letter. If we regard this event—that is, the loss of this person's loved one—if we regard this event not as the effect of chance, not as a fatal necessity of nature, but as a result inevitable, just, holy, of a decree of his providence, conceived from all eternity, to be executed in such a year, day, hour, and in such a place and manner, we shall adore in humble silence the impenetrable loftiness of his secrets. We shall venerate the sanctity of his decrees. We shall bless the act of his providence. And uniting our will with that of God himself, we shall wish with him, in him, and for him, the thing that he has willed in us and for us from all eternity.

Now, there is something wonderfully liberating about that perspective. And it is the perspective that the Bible brings when we face these questions. The passage from Ecclesiastes 12, as well as, for example, passages from the letter of James, confirm what human experience makes clear—that life is brief. Even a long life is brief.

In light of eternity, certainly. That life is frail. The great mystery is not that we have a list of people for whom we are praying who are unwell within the framework of the Parkside Church. The real mystery is that the list is so short in relationship to so many people, given especially the frailty of our lives. And the Bible also confronts us with the reality of death—a reality from which we may wish to run, but we cannot run. And when we come up against that, if you like, the brevity of life and its frailty, the reality of death and the certainty of judgment, we have then, within the Scriptures, these clear, wonderful, encouraging, guiding statements concerning the nature of death for the Christian. And we could run through a whole host of them.

But for example, I'll tell you just three. For the Christian, death's sting is drawn. The sting of death is drawn. That's 1 Corinthians 15.56, if you want to look it up later. Paul says, The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you've ever been out in your backyard and you've had a youngster with you, a little one, and you've wanted to protect them and look after them, if a bee or a wasp or a few wasps have come around, you will have been very, very careful to make sure that you put yourself in between them and the potential of the sting. And if one of these bees comes, and as you reach out your arm, you take the sting that was planned for the little one, then you will have drawn the sting, and the little one will now have nothing to fear from the influence of that creature. Christ, in going to the cross, has dealt with the guilt of our sin, has broken the bondage of sin's power in the Christian's life, and on account of that, we may look into the face of God with death's sting drawn. Secondly, the Bible makes it clear that we are asleep in death through Jesus. Now, interestingly, when the Bible uses the picture of sleep as best as I've been able to look for it, it never uses sleep in relationship to our souls. It uses sleep in relationship to our bodies. It talks about our bodies sleeping, not about our souls sleeping. And it gives to us the reality of this notion of having fallen asleep in Jesus.

Again, that's Pauline terminology. And the conjunction is, through Jesus—falling asleep through Jesus, as a result of Jesus. In other words, just in the same way as a child inevitably hears their mom or their dad say, Bedtime! we will hear Jesus say the same to us.

Bedtime! And we may say to Jesus what children say to their dads or their moms. Will you stay with me while I fall asleep? And Jesus says, Yes, I will.

Better than that, I will be with you in that sleep. And Manton says, Man cannot be completely happy till the body be raised again. The soul alone doth not constitute human nature or that being which may be called man.

The body doth essentially concur to the constitution of man as well as the soul. Therefore the soul, though it be a spirit and can live apart, yet it was not made to live apart forever, but to live in the body. And so remaineth a widow, as it were, till the body be raised up and united to it. It is without its mate and companion, so that it remaineth destitute, or half itself, which though it may be born for a while, yet not forever."

And then he goes on to write from there. Now, this is important to come to the question of what we're doing with the body in the process of death, and that's why I read it. What he is saying there is that humanity, man qua man, in its constitution, is not complete simply as a soul, but body and soul unite to make the human constitution. And the absence of the soul from the body does not therefore render the body obsolete, insignificant, as if you were throwing out an old water bottle to be discarded, because you knew that you were going to get a better water bottle on some later occasion. Alistair Begg with a message titled, On Death and Dying, This is Truth for Life. As Alistair said, our contemporary culture doesn't like talking about death. That's why it's so important for us to be students of the Bible.

Death is a certainty. Which of us wants to stand before God unprepared? That's one of the reasons why we teach the whole Bible on Truth for Life. In fact, we've heard from listeners all around the world who this year have written to us to say how grateful they are that Truth for Life is a source of biblical truth they can trust. What we've learned from 2020 is that in times of fear and worry, all of us want and need teaching we can rely on. So if Truth for Life has helped you navigate some of the challenges you've faced this year, would you consider providing the financial support we need at this important time? Your December giving is vital to our ministry.

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Go to truthforlife.org slash donate or tap the book image you see in the mobile app. And while you're at it, visit our online store where you'll find a new USB from Alistair titled The Miracle of Christmas. This USB contains eight short series that unpack how Jesus' birth altered all of human history. No matter how familiar you are with the Christmas story, there's a great deal more to learn in this panoramic view of Jesus coming and his eventual return. Visit truthforlife.org slash store. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you can join us tomorrow. Alistair will explore the sensitive issues of burial and cremation as we continue our study titled My Times Are in Your Hands. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.