God’s Glory In Our Death

One of the oldest books in the Bible asks a question that's as modern as tomorrow.

In Job 14-14 we read, If a man dies, shall he live again? It's not about riches or fame, success or failure. The deepest issue of life is what happens once it's over. Today, how the glory of God makes it possible for us to face death with triumph.

Please stay with us. From Chicago, this is The Moody Church Hour, a weekly service of worship and teaching with Pastor Erwin Lutzer. On this broadcast, you'll hear message number seven in a nine-part series on Nothing Else Matters, How the Glory of God Gives Meaning to All of Life. Later in our program, Erwin Lutzer will speak on God's glory in our death.

Pastor Lutzer comes now to open today's service in prayer. Father, we want to thank you today that you are faithful. Help us to be honest in our confession and open to what the Spirit would tell us today through singing and through your Word.

In Jesus' name, amen. Great is the measure of our Father's love. Great is the measure of our Father's love.

Think about His love. Think about His goodness. Think about His grace that brought us home.

Come as high as the heavens above. Great is the measure of our Father's love. Great is the measure of our Father's love.

Think about His love. Think about His goodness. Think about His grace that brought us home.

Come as high as the heavens above. Great is the measure of our Father's love. Great is the measure of our Father's love. Great is the measure of our Father's love. Great is our faithfulness, O God, our Father.

There is no shadow of duty within. Now changes come from the passions they will come. Let us come, let us live, come, forever be. Great is our faithfulness. Great is our faithfulness.

Morning by morning, bluebird sings I still. All I have needed, I have no other. Great is my faithfulness, O God, to be.

Summer and winter, springtime and harvest, Sun, moon, and stars, their forces abide. One with all nature in them, in hope within. To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love. Great is our faithfulness. Great is our faithfulness.

Morning by morning, bluebird sings I still. All I have needed, I have no other. Great is my faithfulness, O God, to be.

I am your Savior, please have it your way. I am only blessed to see and to hide. Pray, Lord, to make and write, O Lord, to our Lord.

Blessings, O God, with ten thousand things found. Great is our faithfulness. Great is our faithfulness.

Morning by morning, bluebird sings I still. All I have needed, I have no other. Great is our faithfulness.

Good is our faithfulness. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Towards grace and love my heart to be, and grace my fears free. How precious did that grace appear beyond my first gleam. To any dangerous causes, I have already known. Tis grace and love, he saved us all, and grace will be all. We've been there ten thousand years, Christ shining at the sun.

We know there's need to see the face. And that we were, we are. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to welcome Nicole to The Moody Church.

Let's do that. Oh Lord, my God, consider all the worlds thy hands have made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder. Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. When through the woods and forest glades I wander, and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.

When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur, and hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze. And when I think that God, his son not sparing, sent him to die, my scarce can take it in. But on the cross, my more than gladly living, he bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art.

When Christ shall come with shout of inclination, and take me home, and joy shall fill my heart. Then I will grow in humble adoration, and then proclaim my God, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee. How great thou art, how great thou art. Oh, Lord, my God, how great thou art.

Thank you. And watch away my sin. Come, and my passion set me free. And make me more within.

And make me more within. Lord Jesus, think of me. Come, live the battle strong with all my pain and misery. Be thou my health and life. Be thou my health and life. Lord Jesus, we are free.

Oh, let me more stay. Through darkness and the blessings be put forward. Be thou my health and life. Lord Jesus, think of me.

And when this life is past, I may not write what you say, since you are not past. Come, play the game. Come, play the game.

And share my joy at last. Come, play the game. Come, play the game.

Come, play the game. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him, all creatures here below. Praise him, all body, heavenly hosts. Praise the Lord, Son, and holy Ghost.

Amen. Our scripture reading this morning is from Philippians chapter 1 verses 18 to 26. I invite you to follow along in your Bible or in the bulletin.

Philippians chapter 1. Yes, I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose?

I cannot tell. I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Amen.

And you may be seated. This is the seventh in a series of messages titled, Nothing Else Matters, How the Glory of God Gives Meaning to All of Life. I hope that you are praying as I've instructed you to.

A few of you have told me that you have. Before you get out of bed in the morning, you should pray and say, Lord, glorify yourself in my life today and do it at my expense. Today's topic is how to die to the glory of God. It was Samuel Johnson, that great poet and playwright, who said that nothing focuses the mind like the knowledge that one is to be hanged in a fortnight. You can imagine, of course, that if you were told you were to be hung, your mind would be very focused, very specifically focused on that moment. It's interesting that Saddam Hussein, that great cruel dictator who killed so many people, before he was hung, he trembled, and well, he might.

C.S. Lewis said that when we see God after death, at the end, he says, that that face, which is the delight or the terror of the universe, must be turned upon each one of us, with one expression or the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I think that Saddam Hussein knew where he was going. But Christians die differently. Cyprian in the third century said that if it were not for the plagues, Christianity would never conquered in Northern Africa and parts of Europe. He said the plagues were a great blessing because it gave the pagans an opportunity to show that Christians die differently. They have hope. The pagans said of the Christians that they carried their dead as if in triumph.

There was something very triumphal about their death because the Christians knew that they would be reunited again. It's interesting that in John chapter 21, and I'll not ask you to turn to it, but to simply remind you of it, in verse 18, Jesus is speaking to Peter and he says these words. He says, when you were young, you went wherever you wanted to. You put on clothes and you did what you wanted to.

But when you are old, others will clothe you and they will stretch out your hands and take you where you don't want to go. And then John adds, and this he said indicating by what death he was to glorify God. That expression to stretch out your hands was used in the New Testament times to refer to crucifixion. And it is said that Peter, when he died, did not believe that he was worthy to be crucified like Christ, so requested that he be crucified upside down. And his hands were stretched, and in dying he gave glory to God.

But the question before us is, how does that happen? Do we have some role models and more specific instruction of how to die for the glory of God? My text today is Philippians chapter 1, and what I'd like us to do is to see the three ways in which, in facing death, when we face death, how we can give glory to God, and the text there is open before you. And the first way that we can give glory to God when facing death is, we affirm the true worth of Jesus Christ, the worth of Jesus Christ. Paul says in verse 21 very clearly, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And what he says later is that to die is much better. When facing death, the Christian says, I so value being with Christ. Even though he's with us now in spirit, I so value being in his presence that actually death to me is gain. We always think of death being as a loss.

It says, no, it's gain. Death is more important than my relationship with my wife, my grandchildren, all of my friends, my relatives. God taking me to heaven is gain. And Christians should approach death that way. What a remarkable statement. For a moment, I want you to think about what it would be like if you were to take that word Christ and substitute something else in it.

How would it read? For me to live is money and to die? Oh, I lose it all. For me to live is fame and to die is to be soon forgotten. For me to live is pleasure, but to die means the end of the pleasure and simply reaping what I have sown. What an amazing statement of the Christian life. For me to live is Christ. Death is gain.

It takes me into his presence. When you're at a funeral of a Christian and you cry and well you might and grieve, don't ever think that you are grieving for them. You're grieving for yourself, which is perfectly fine. But they are with Christ. And if they had the opportunity of returning, if Jesus gave them that option, no matter how much they love you, they would never want to return because they have seen Christ and they've gained. It's not a loss.

It's a gain. So that's one way in which when we face death we really do honor the Lord and we can die for his glory. A second way is we not only trust the fact that Jesus Christ is valuable and death is gain, but also we trust the timing of Christ. Or I could change that to say that we trust the sovereignty of Christ. Notice Paul says, he says, I'd love to die and to be with Christ because that's gain.

It's far better. But then he says to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. What he's saying is that God has a purpose for me that isn't finished. And ultimately my times are in God's hands.

And they are. Now if you ask me the question why it is that some people live longer, why is it that my mother who's 101 to whom I spoke yesterday and her mind is very clear, why is it that she lives to 101 and wants to die and be with Jesus and has so for many years, and yet here's a young mother who dies of cancer at the age of 35 with three or four children. If you ask those kinds of questions we cannot answer. We can't pry into the counsels of the Almighty. We can't say to ourselves that we read God's diary to understand his plan and why some people live longer than others. As a matter of fact, you may ask the question, but can we prolong our life?

I know that there's a magazine entitled Life Extension. And there is a point at which we as humans and the divine purposes coincide in ways that I could discuss in more detail, but not today. But there are ways that we can understand that. But at the end of the day, our times are in God's hands. Remember that old joke, I forget exactly how it went, but where a man arrived in heaven and saw its beauty and then said to his wife who was already there just to think, I could have been here five years earlier if you wouldn't have forced me to eat all of that oat bran. The fact is that there is a convergence of what we do and God's purposes, but our times are in God's hands. It's not only how long we live, but how we die. That's in God's hands too, and there are many ways to die. Death is so creative. There is martyrdom, and we have plenty of examples of that.

There's cancer, there's accidents, there's murder. I remember a woman telling me that her husband was murdered, and she was a believer and he was too, and all that she could see in her grief. And of course, the fact that she grieved was good, though there is such a thing as good grief, but there's also bad grief.

But all that she could see in this was evil and the devil. I said to her, your husband, I believe, died at a time appointed by God. She said, how could God have anything to do with this? And then I pointed out that Jesus Christ died at God's appointed time, and he was brutally murdered, and he died at the right time.

She said, you know, I never saw that before. She said, maybe I can accept this as part of the will and the purpose of God. How do we glorify God in our death? First of all, we show the value of Christ. Secondly, we recognize the sovereignty of Christ, that all the demons of hell and wicked men cannot end our lives if God thinks that there's still work for us to do. And so we trust Christ when it comes to this interesting issue called death. There's a third way, and that is not only his value and the timing or the sovereignty, but we witness to Christ. We witness to Christ. And I'd like to spend a bit of time on this and give you three different ways in which believers can witness to Christ in the whole business of what we call death.

How can we do it? First of all, by the way in which we accept death. Charles Colson says that he believes that whenever a person of the world gets cancer, God allows a Christian to get cancer so that the world can see the difference. Now I need to put in a parenthesis and tell you that sometimes Christians haven't done very well here at this point. Rebecca and I know an oncologist who directly or indirectly has presided over the deaths of thousands of people. I said to him, tell me how Christians die over against those who aren't.

He said sometimes Christians don't do well. They don't discuss the future with their spouse, even though they're told they have terminal cancer. They don't talk about insurance. They don't talk about the funeral.

They don't talk about it. And so the wife is left making all of these decisions on her own because the Christian thinks in the end God is going to heal me. And so they use prayer as denial, the denial of the reality of death, when clearly the statistics are in their favor. But there are many, many that is to say in the favor of death, of course, especially when you're told that you have a terminal disease.

I mean, there are some rare exceptions. But for the most part, Christians should be realistic. The soul that sins, it dies. I'm a sinner. In Adam, I'll die.

And I will die too. And realism should characterize us. There are some wonderful examples about that. James Montgomery Boyce, a pastor in Philadelphia at about the age of 62, had terminal cancer. And he was wheeled into the sanctuary of his church to give his last message.

It was about 17 minutes long. I'm going to give you just a short paragraph. He said, should you pray for a miracle? Well, you're free to do that, of course, but my general impression is that God, who is able to do miracles, certainly can. But he's also able to keep you from having cancer if he doesn't want you to have it.

Well, that's interesting, come to think of it. You have a good point. So although miracles do happen, they are rare. Perhaps you could pray for wisdom for the doctors, and then he says, and pray for the glory of God.

I like that. He's not saying, let's try to get as many people to pray as we can. And maybe God is something like a congressman who bows to the pressure of his constituency. And if we can get enough people, if we can get thousands of people to pray, surely God is going to say, oh my, I can't put up with all of these petitions anymore. I'd better give in. If I had a terminal disease, I would want many people to pray for me.

I do grant that. But I don't think that the numbers is what's going to do it. I believe that there's value even in unanswered prayer in those situations. At the end of the day, the will of God is going to be done.

The reason that we should pray together in groups is because in the process of doing that, God oftentimes reveals his will more clearly. But we can't simply twist God's arm because we have thousands of people to pray for us to the credit of Dr. Boyce. He didn't do that. Like Jesus, he bowed simply to the reality of the fact that he would die, and he saw in it, if I could continue the sermon for just a moment, he said that we always believe that God is in control. He preached that all of his life. But he said the other thing that's more difficult to believe is that God cares. All Christians believe God has it under control. But the question is, does he care? And Boyce says, yes, he is also good.

Everything that he does is good. Romans 12, one and two, we are given the opportunity of renewing our minds to prove what God's will is, and it says that his will is good and pleasing and perfect. Who would want to change the will of God if it is the perfect will of God?

The Christian accepts death. One of the contemporary examples of this is a man by the name of Nate Nyman. Nate and his wife Margaret, and Margaret is here today. I saw her earlier.

They used to attend The Moody Church many years ago, and then because of geographical reasons, they attended elsewhere. But Nate was... Nate, the thing that I liked so much about him is, what you saw is what you got. There was no pretense. When he discovered that he had terminal cancer, Rebecca and I drove out to Michigan to spend some time with him, and Nate said to me, he said, I'm glad it's coming this way. I'm glad I didn't die of a heart attack, because, he says, this gives me an opportunity to be able to help my wife, to work through the transition, insurance matters, the will, et cetera, and to make sure that everything is fine between me and my children.

And I thought, you know, that's been a long time since I've heard someone, even a Christian, accept death the way Nate did. I'm going to give you a website that I want you to go to, and you can write it down. I'll give it to you right now, and then I'll repeat it, because his wife, Margaret, is an excellent writer, and the website is gettingthroughthis.com.

That is to say, the blog, gettingthroughthis.com. Nate said, it's not really how many years a person gets, it's rather how we use the ones we have. Now he's speaking as someone who's going to be dying in a few weeks.

It's not about the number of candles on the cake, but rather how good the cake tastes that matters. Isn't that beautiful? If I could sign on the dotted line to get out of this, my pen would already be out of my pocket, but that isn't reality. In the end, it all boils down to two things, just as the old hymn says, trust and obey. And then he says this, life is interesting, it's like you come up against a wall that is ten feet tall, but you can't see over it. On the other side is your future. You want to see it, but no matter how hard you try, you can't. One of his favorite proverbs, a man's heart devises his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Gettingthroughthis.com.

Check out the blog thousands of people have. Here's a man who accepted death, who believed in Christ, and he glorified God in the way in which he accepted it and lived through it. So we must keep in mind that believers, I believe, glorify God by the way in which they accept death. They look at Christ. My Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Let the will of God be done. And for the believer, it is gain. Now if you're an unbeliever, the whole story changes dramatically. A friend of mine with whom I actually was eating about two or three weeks ago told me that in his church there was a woman with terminal cancer.

She accepted it with a sense of sweetness and realism. And then he knew a wealthy friend. There's nothing like cancer revealing the heart of a wealthy person if that person doesn't know the Lord.

Because, you know, you've always thought, well, money can solve this. So he was frantically on the telephone, cursing the hospital, cursing the doctor, wondering whether or not there's some cure in Europe that he might be able to take advantage of, thinking, surely I've got all this money. Surely you can keep me alive. What a way to go. Voltaire said before he died, I am abandoned by God, and I shall go to hell.

Wow. Sir Francis Newport, who actually lived in England several centuries ago and was a playwright as well as a politician, said as he was dying, oh, that I was to lie for a thousand years on the fire that is never quenched to purchase the favor of God. But it is a fruitless wish. Millions and millions of years would bring me no nearer to the end of my torments. Oh, eternity, eternity. Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell.

Wow. There are only two ways to die, either in Christ or outside of him. There is no middle path. I believe that Christians can glorify God by the way in which they accept death. I think that, secondly, they can also glorify God, especially by the way in which they sorrow. And sorrow they should and sorrow they must. The Apostle Paul says, though, that we sorrow not as those who have no hope.

Wow. And that was the thing that Cyprian referred to, that Christians had hope. This is 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, where Paul says we don't sorrow that way. And then he says, as he talks about the coming of Christ, so shall we ever be with the Lord. You're going to be reunited again. The Niman family is going to be together.

The Lutzer family is going to be together. And so we sorrow. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus.

But it's not hopeless because we know what lies on the other side. And Jesus has the keys of death and of Hades. There's a third way, and that is, I believe, that we, in our closing moments, and not everybody has the opportunity to do this, but in our closing moments, we actually have the opportunity to witness to the power of God. Luther thought that we should taunt death because the scripture says in Hebrews chapter 2 that Jesus came to destroy him who has the power of death, that is the devil, and to deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Death is fearful, but Jesus came to deliver us from it. Satan has the power of death within the limits and the providence prescribed by God. But at the end, the fear of death is taken away in Jesus. And Christians can witness to that. They can witness to the divine providence of God.

Sometimes it's done on the part of the survivors. You may be not acquainted with the name Carolyn Sandbel Berg, but it was her father while going on a ship in Sweden. The ship lurched, and he fell overboard and drowned. Her father was a Christian minister. It was she who wrote the hymn later, day by day and with each passing moment. And I've often pondered the words, imagine a daughter writing this, he whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what he deems best. And then I think she says, the protection of his child and treasure is a charge which on himself he laid.

And I read that and I say, Elizabeth, I don't really get it. That wave that hit the ship was under God's control. Your father's gone, and you're talking about the protection of his child and treasure is a charge with on upon himself he laid. That's the Christian hope. That when you die even with an accident that God is there. And God is protecting you all the way to the heavenly gates.

And that is gain. But then I think of the many people who before they died left us some wonderful role models. I wish I had the faith of a Bonhoeffer. You know, of course, he stood against Hitler and became part of the resistance. And then in Flossburg, he was hung.

But I love to read that story. It was morning and he was asked to actually undress and he was allowed to pray before he went to the gallows. And this is what he said. He said, O God, this is the end, but for me the beginning of life.

A doctor who was present to verify his death said that he had never seen anyone except death with such a sense of tranquility. I am in God's hands, but for me it is the beginning. We can't see on the other side of the wall just like Nate said. We're up against a wall that's too high for us to peer over. But yet, read the words and the promises of Jesus and we get a glimpse of the promised land and we know that there on the other side waiting for us, even as Stephen was stoned, Jesus at the right hand of God the Father is there to welcome us.

O God, it is the end, but for me it is the beginning of life. I love to refer to Anne Boleyn because I've been to the Tower of London where she was beheaded, second wife of Henry VIII who is a very interesting personality. So much could be said about him. He had six wives and many of them died at the chopping block. Anne Boleyn became friends with Tyndale who translated the Bible into English. She never met him, but across the continent they connected and she actually got a copy of the New Testament. In fact, there are some reports that she took the New Testament to the chopping block with her. And then you should read the prayer that Anne Boleyn prayed before she died.

There she is at the chopping block. She said, I commit my soul to the Lord Jesus Christ who shed his blood on my behalf for the forgiveness of all of my sins. What a way to go.

Cramner, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said later, she who was a queen on earth became a queen in heaven. And I believe that he was right. What a way to go. My own father, his last full sentence at the age of 105, now he died at 106, but at 105 he wasn't able to finish sentences very well. He'd begin a sentence and then he'd forget the rest of the sentence. And I'm saying, hey, I'm not that old and that happens to me once in a while too.

I don't know what's going on there. A few months before he died, he's 105, he's going to become 106 and then die. Rebecca and I are there in the room and we're just talking with mother and we don't even know that he's listening. He's there in the wheelchair and his eyes are closed and suddenly opens his eyes and says a full sentence without stopping in German, but translated exactly, it is this. We have been speaking about the present. Now it is time for us to speak about eternity and the glory of God. That's my dad's closing full sentence before he died.

Let's talk about D.L. Moody. Moody struggled tremendously with the issue of death and was very fearful of it. But it is said that while he was dying, he said, Earth recedes, heaven opens. If this be death, it is glorious. Paul on this side of the grave said to die is gain. Don't take people's gain away from them.

Jesus is worth more than your children, your family, your environment, your work, your vocation. It is gain to die and not a loss. Hamlet, you remember in Shakespeare's play, was struggling with the whole issue of suicide. The question was whether or not he should live to be or not to be.

That is the question. Bottom line. If I go on living, I can't stand this misery. If I die, I ought to die. What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil? In other words, if I commit suicide, what I encounter in the life beyond could be far worse than this.

So what do I do? Hamlet was saying, live or die, I lose. Either way. The Apostle Paul says, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain. I don't know which I prefer, I actually prefer to go to heaven, but I'll stay here as long as you want. Live or die, I win.

And the difference is Christ. For me to live is Christ. And to die is gain. To glorify God in our death, despite our doubts, when we go on believing, and know that he is so precious, we gain him at death.

And so we accept it. It's the chariot that God sends to take us all the way to heaven. And when the chariot comes, we accept its arrival. Let us pray. Father, we ask in Jesus' name, now that you will take these moments and bless them, for those who have never trusted Christ as Savior, may they do that right now. May they say, I want Christ as my Savior, so that I can say, to live is Christ and to die is gain. In Jesus' name, Amen. On today's Moody Church Hour, Pastor Lutzer spoke on God's Glory in Our Death, the seventh message in a nine-part series on Nothing Else Matters, How the Glory of God Gives Meaning to All of Life.

Pastor Lutzer's book, The Inheritance of the Redeemed, helps us claim the spiritual treasures that are ours in Christ. It Can Be Yours is our thank you for your gift of any amount to support The Moody Church Hour. Just call us at 1-800-215-5001.

That's 1-800-215-5001. Online, go to moodyoffer.com. That's moodyoffer.com. Or write to Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Join us next week for another Moody Church Hour with Pastor Erwin Lutzer and the Congregation of Historic Moody Church in Chicago. This broadcast is a ministry of The Moody Church.