8 days later

by Frank Turk

Technically, I am still on hiatus.

You know, I have been at this for more than a decade.  I've been doing this since before there were hit counters, and before some people realized they could make careers (or at least: make up their own titles or become pastors) by saying things and doing things which, let's face it, would get them man-handled in person by actual men (if any could be found).

In that 10 years, I have personally be accused of being a monger for sensationalism.  I have been accused of making up controversies for the sake of driving the stats, and of course it's sort of a meme around here that we do everything for the sake of the traffic and the stats.  Sure: it's so absurd, might as well hug it like a long lost effigy, a rag doll filled with our old laundry so that our pets might mistake it for us while the torch and the pitch fork crowd do their worst.

Let me be clear about something that needs to be said: not once ever in the history of this blog have I ever climbed up on the dead body of the victim of a disease or a tragedy to make sure people were reading this blog.  I am sure I have said some things and done some things in the last 10 years which still sting some people, and once I am certain I spoke the meaning of Christmas into a tragedy so great that only God could be the answer, but not once ever did I use the death of a famous person to create traffic and stir up views for the sake of notoriety.

OK: so how can you know you did this? It's a fair question your readers ought to ask you, and of course the most dastardly response is, "well, they're not allowed to judge my heart." As true as this might be, they can judge your actions, and I think here are some guidelines for that:

• How often in the last 18 months have I mentioned or opined on Robin Williams' career or life in this blog? How relevant has he been to my on-going content?
• How often have I written about suicide and depression in the last 18 months? Am I qualified to do so?
• Did I wait for the initial findings to come out to see if this was a suicide, or did I simply reach my own conclusions before there were any facts (that is: did I write my post before there was any disclosure about what happened)?
• Did I think about this subject as it appeared in a list of trends which I follow? Was my point to make a sport of being miserable, or was it to bring comfort, especially in a Gospel-centered way?

If this was not you, great: nice work.  if it was?  Please read below.

Anyone who has done that in the last 8 days needs to apologize for it, and repent.  That sort of thing is so ugly, it borders on the kind of idolatry only found at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia and in the deepest, darkest parts of the Old Testament.

It's a good thing my Hiatus is not over for 3 more weeks.  Otherwise I'd be naming names.

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It Is Not Death to Die

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson




The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "The Tomb of Jesus," the 18th sermon in the New Park Street Pulpit series. It was preached on Sunday Morning, 8 April 1855, at Exeter Hall in London.




ie I must—this body must be a carnival for worms; it must be eaten by those tiny cannibals; peradventure it shall be scattered from one portion of the earth to another; the constituent particles of this my frame will enter into plants, from plants pass into animals, and thus be carried into far distant realms; but, at the blast of the archangel's trumpet, every separate atom of my body shall find its fellow; like the bones lying in the valley of vision, though separated from one another, the moment God shall speak, the bone will creep to its bone; then the flesh shall come upon it; the four winds of heaven shall blow, and the breath shall return.

So let me die, let beasts devour me, let fire turn this body into gas and vapor, all its particles shall yet again be restored; this very self-same, actual body shall start up from its grave, glorified and made like Christ's body, yet still the same body, for God hath said it. Christ's same body rose; so shall mine.

O my soul, dost thou now dread to die? Thou wilt lose thy partner body a little while, but thou wilt be married again in heaven; soul and body shall again be united before the throne of God. The grave—what is it? It is the bath in which the Christian puts the clothes of his body to have them washed and cleansed. Death—what is it? It is the waiting-room where we robe ourselves for immortality; it is the place where the body, like Esther, bathes itself in spices that it may be fit for the embrace of its Lord. Death is the gate of life; I will not fear to die, then, but will say,

"Shudder not to pass the stream;
Venture all thy care on him;
Him whose dying love and power
Stilled its tossing, hushed its roar,
Safe in the expanded wave;
Gentle as a summer's eve.
Not one object of his care
Ever suffered shipwreck there."

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How Steve Jobs and Christ defeated death and preached the gospel

by Dan Phillips

Reader Yurie Hwang pointed me to a thoughtful reflection on the death of Steve Jobs titled Steve Jobs: the Secular Prophet. I commend it, and would like to lift a Jobs-quotation from it, and head off in a different direction.

Speaking of his cancer-diagnosis in 2003, Jobs said:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

And thus, Steve Jobs defeated death and preached the gospel.

Were I a Christian reader who knew nothing about the writer (me), at this point I'd be spluttering, "Wait, what? No he didn't!"

But, you see, Jobs did defeat death. Or to his own mind, and in the minds of many who hear him, he did. How did Jobs defeat death? By redefining it. Death is not an evil, death is not an enemy. In fact, death is the "single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new."

What did Jobs do to defeat death? Wished it away. Said words. Redefined.

Then, Steve Jobs preached the gospel. How? He preached the world's gospel: trust your heart. You are as gods.

I don't doubt that Job's thoughts made a lot of people feel good; and, for a lot of people, that is enough. Some might want to think about them, though, ask questions.

For instance, did Jobs really defeat death? Jobs now is, himself, dead. Clearly his redefinition was not an elimination, it was not a conquest. It was simply a transformation by talk. It was whistling (and myth-making) past the graveyard. The squash is still a squash, the liver is still liver — but the logomagician tells you it tastes really good. Or perhaps, more to the point (since tastes differ), the raging fire still burns, but the word-wizard tells you it won't burn you, it will cleanse you. And that may be enough.

Until you enter the blaze, and reality (blind to the rhetorical spell that was woven) crashes in.

And what of his gospel? "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become." Indeed. Adolph Hitler knew what he truly wanted to become, as did Robert Carnegie, Martin Luther, Jeffrey Dahmer, "Mother" Theresa, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and Dr. George Tiller.

But whose heart-dream was idyllic, and whose demonic? How do we tell? In the kingdom of the heart, there are no walls, no lines — or what lines there are constantly shift, constantly reform and reshape. As I explain and develop at length elsewhere, the heart is a broken gauge, an internal Jacob, incurably self-deceptive. Trust that, you say?

I remember the birth of that "gospel." So do you. It was in a garden. There wasn't an Apple, but there was some kind of fruit, and a serpent proposing a paradigm-shift. "Trust your heart," he said in essence. "You say you know what God says, but I say I know what God thinks and feels. You don't need His words. You just need yourselves. Be your own reference point. Reach, take, eat, know, become. Your heart will never steer you wrong."

And ironically, the moment our first parents trusted their hearts and reached for the fruit, the cancer that took Steve Jobs' life had its inception.

But now I point you to another Gospel that has its literary beginning in that same chapter, in verse 15 (also developed at some length in the same place). God spoke of a Seed of the woman (!) who would come and crush the serpent's head. The rest of the Old Testament traces and develops the trail leading to that Seed (which I develop elsewhere), and the New Testament unveils His arrival, and His mission.

Jesus, too, defeated death and preached the Gospel — except really.

To Jesus, death wasn't a good thing. It was the result and penalty of sin, and its aftermath held terrors which those on this side of the divide can only imagine. But Jesus used the most lurid and frightening imagery to try even to hint at the horrors that death held for each and every one of us, apart from a miraculous act of God. In fact, He would tell the tale of a rich man who lived his dreams, and dreamt of more and more, until death dashed his expectations and brought him face to face with the myth-shattering reality of God's judgment (Lk. 16:19-31). Where were his heart's dreams then? Lost in the flames, drowning in oceans of regret. Death was not that rich materialistic dreamer's friend.

In fact, as Jesus' spokesman would later affirm, death is man's enemy, his last enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). Not his friend.

Well then, what did Jesus do about death? Redefine it? Not in the first place. In the first place, He yielded to it on its own turf and then He defeated it. For the first time ever, death was not able to hold one of its victims, but forever lost its grip on Him and His (Acts 2:24), for He not only was resurrected to life, but was the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25). For that reason, by His submission to death for His people He defeated the one who had the power of death and freed His people from its slavery (Heb. 2:14-15; Phil. 2:1ff.).

So now those who believe savingly in the Lord Jesus walk in newness of life, and need not fear death. Why? Because of some word-games? No. Because Jesus actually (and not merely rhetorically) defeated death, and because Jesus actually preaches a saving Gospel that brings us peace with God (cf. Acts 10:36; Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:13-22). This Gospel does not leave us chained to the deception-factory of our hearts, but frees us to serve the living God (Rom. 6) and know the true freedom only His expressed thoughts can bring (Jn. 8:31-32).

Thousands of years ago, the psalmist sung of two totally different paths (Ps. 1). Jesus spoke of the same (Mt. 7:13-14), and warned of any who would try to blur the borders (7:15ff.).

Nothing has changed. One way leads (in thralldom to our hearts' dreams) to death. The other leads (away from our hearts and word-games) and to life, to Him who is life (Jn. 14:6).

So when Steve Jobs said of death, "No one has ever escaped it," he made yet another critical miscalculation.

Christ escaped it.

Thus Christ alone defeated death, and Christ alone preaches a Gospel which saves in reality, and not merely technologically nor rhetorically.

Terminal thinking: to leave a lasting testimony etched in stone

by Dan Phillips

Naturally, you are likely to take the headline metaphorically. My intent, however, is literal. Our topic is a sad one but, I think, a good one.

We all know that, barring the Lord's return for us, we shall die. It is wise to live in this awareness. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart," Solomon writes (Ecclesiastes 7:2). Christians are concerned not only about our coming date with the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10), but also about the testimony we will leave. If we can leave a lasting testimony to the Gospel, so much the better.

Reader Mike Dickey, who comments under the screen name vcdechagn, emailed me last week. He shared the sad news that his mother has terminal cancer. (Perhaps you know my thoughts about cancer.) The doctors think she will be with Jesus within the next month or so. I'm sure you'll want to join me in praying for Mike's mother, his father, and Mike himself.

But Mike's reason for writing was to pass along a request of hers. I was touched to learn that she is a reader. She wanted Mike to ask me whether I had any suggestions for the inscription on the headstone.

Mike's mom and dad will be using the same headstone. The tombstone can have four lines, and approximately 25 words per line. That is a 100-word total. [Update: that could be in error; perhaps 25 characters per line, 100 characters total.]

So I will open it to you. But first, here are our controls:

• We are assuming a headstone, and that's all that is relevant.
• Therefore this thread will not be the place for debating the relative merits/demerits of burial vs. cremation, or costs of burial and/or headstones.
• This thread also will not be the place for debating the morality of cremation.
• And of course, this thread WILL NOT be the place for humorous anecdotes — unless and only unless you've seen a tombstone that utilizes appropriate humor to communicate the Gospel effectively.

I mean to be very strict on those controls. It always seems like someone doesn't believe me when I say that. "Someone" always encounters an unyielding surprise.

So here are the questions to you. Please, respond to any or all:

1. Have you thought this out for yourself?
2. Have you seen tombstones with effective testimonies to Christ, to the Gospel, to the sure and certain hope of resurrection?
3. What would you want on your tombstone?
4. What would you recommend for Mike's parents as an inscription?

Thanks. I know you'll have some great input, and it will mean a lot to Mike and his folks, as will our prayers.

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At Home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8)

by Phil Johnson

Jackie and Mike Taylor

ike Taylor was the first friend I made when I came to work here at Grace to You in 1983. His office was right next to mine, and we almost immediately formed a mutual respect and deep affection for one another that did not diminish with time.

In those days, Grace To You operated under the oversight of Grace Church's elders, and I was the first non-Grace-Church person ever hired (from Chicago, no less) to work for the ministry. Mike was still a fairly new Christian—a one-time bartender and frustrated film-school graduate who had been hired to edit study guides. (The study guides were those simple outline-style curricular books Grace to You used to publish as companions to each new series we broadcast on the radio.) Mike's full-time employment began just two or three months before I arrived, so we were the newest employees in the building.

Ironically, although I had worked as an editor at Moody Press, my first job at Grace to You was answering listener mail. Mike was inexperienced as an editor but devoted to the task and committed to excellence. For the first year and a half or so, I deliberately kept my nose out of all editorial affairs. But I needn't have worried. Mike welcomed me heartily from day one, and there was never any tension (and not one cross word that ever passed between us) in more than 26 years of friendship.

As it turned out, Mike had numerous innate abilities that perfectly suited him for editorial work. He was an excellent writer with a powerful instinct for clarity and brevity. He was also a quick learner. Everything he ever wrote or edited was superb. He had enough natural talent and developed enough wordsmithing skills that he would have qualified to work for any publisher anywhere.

When Mike first started working for Grace to You, it was only on an hourly ad hoc basis. Even when he was first hired full time, I presume he still thought of the job as temporary and transitional; not exactly a promising career move. But as a new Christian, he was hungry to learn the Word of God, and that job gave him an opportunity to study Scripture for long hours and get paid in the process. He could hardly believe that Providence would bless him with such a privilege.

Many years later, more than two decades after Mike moved into management at Grace to You and embraced the job as his life's work, he still felt exactly the same way—utterly amazed at the thought that God took him from tending bar in a joint on Hollywood Boulevard to serving in such a strategic, far-reaching role of ministry alongside John MacArthur. Mike had a loud, infectious laugh that echoed daily through our hallways. He became more knowledgeable about doctrine and Scripture than many seminary graduates. He proved to be an excellent teacher himself and was a key person in the leadership of GraceLife (the group Don Green and I jointly pastor at Grace Church).

Mike met his wife, Jackie, at Grace Church in 1982 or so and married her shortly after I first met him. Jackie and Darlene became lifelong friends, too. The Taylors had two precious daughters, Amanda and Emily, who grew to adulthood alongside my three boys, attending all the same schools, riding in the same carpools, and going to all the same church activities together. All five of them are still active in young-adult activities at Grace Church. Amanda and Emily both serve on the church staff. My eldest son, now 29, found a kindred spirit in Mike. They loved going to hockey games together. Our families were close at every level.

Anyway, two or three years ago, Mike contracted Valley Fever, a fungal infection that in most cases causes nothing worse than mild flu-like symptoms. In a narrow percentage of people, however, it can be very serious, or even prove fatal. Mike seemed to recover from the worst of the fever after that initial severe bout, but a few nagging symptoms remained. By March of this year, he was feeling back pain and losing his sense of balance; his walk became slow and deliberate, and he finally began using a cane. By April, those symptoms worsened; Mike was experiencing a creeping paralysis, and he was obviously losing mobility at a disturbing speed. We were all concerned. Mike, however, remained upbeat. He answered all my concerns with reassurances that he was regularly seeing doctors and he believed they understood what was wrong and could treat it.

The problem, as I understand it, is that the fungus had invaded Mike's spinal column, causing scar tissue that constricted those central nerves and was gradually paralyzing him. The lead doctor proposed a heavy steroidal treatment to knock the fungus out.

About two weeks ago, Mike entered the hospital for ten days of treatment with powerful doses of anti-fungal medication and steroids. Apparently the medication had side-effects that caused massive internal bleeding. Doctors were unable to stop the bleeding, and Mike went to heaven Saturday morning.

The entire Grace to You staff is still in a deep state of shock over Mike's death, and we will all miss him greatly.

Mike and I went together from being the youngest rookies to being the longest-tenured employees in the whole building. I find it hard to believe so many years have gone by so quickly, and I can't imagine what life at Grace to You will be like without Mike's laughter echoing in the hallways.

Please pray for Jackie, Amanda, and Emily. The loss for them is surely even more bitter-tasting than it is for us, and that is almost unimaginable.

And yet in the midst of all that sorrow is a sense of unspeakable joy and rejoicing when we think of Mike. We know he is in the presence of Christ, basking in the glory of heaven, and surely more amazed than ever at by the grace that carried him from Hollywood Boulevard to heaven. Words can't possibly express the triumphant gladness the truth of the gospel brings in moments like this.

What a profound blessing assurance is!

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Precious in the sight of the Lord

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive.The following excerpt is from the sermon "Precious Deaths," preached Sunday morning, 18 February 1872 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. (HT: Steven Hall)

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."—Psalm 116:15.

e it known that while we are sorrowing Christ is rejoicing. His prayer is, "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am," and in the advent of every one of his own people to the skies he sees an answer to that prayer, and is, therefore, glad. He beholds in every perfected one another portion of the reward for the travail of his soul, and he is satisfied in it. We are grieving here, but he is rejoicing there.

Dolorous are their deaths in our sight, but precious are their deaths in his sight. We hang up the mournful escutcheon, and sit us down to mourn our full, and yet, meanwhile, the bells of heaven are ringing for "the bridal feast above," the streamers are floating joyously in every heavenly street, and the celestial world keeps holiday because another heir of heaven has entered upon his heritage.

May this correct our grief. Tears are permitted to us, but they must glisten in the light of faith and hope. Jesus wept, but Jesus never repined. We, too, may weep, but not as those who are without hope, nor yet as though forgetful that there is greater cause for joy than for sorrow in the departure of our brethren.

. . . . . . . . . .

Death, too, we may be sure from this statement cannot be any serious detriment to the believer after all; it cannot be any serious loss to a saint to die. Looking upon the poor corpse, it does seem to be a catastrophe for death to have passed his cold hand across the brow, but it is not so, for the very death is precious; therefore, it is no calamity. Death if rightly viewed is a blessing from the Lord's hand. . . . It is not a loss to die, it is a gain, a lasting, a perpetual, an illimitable gain.

The man is at one moment weak, and cannot stir a finger; in an instant he is clothed with power. Call ye not this a gain?

That brow is aching; it shall wear a crown within the next few tickings of the clock. Is that no gain?

That hand is palsied; it shall at once wave the palm branch. Is that a loss? The man is sick beyond physician's power; but he shall be where the inhabitant is never sick. Is that a loss?

When Baxter lay a dying, and his friends came to see him, almost the last word he said was in answer to the question, "Dear Mr. Baxter, how are you?"

"Almost well," said he, and so it is. Death cures; it is the best medicine, for they who die are not only almost well, but healed for ever. . . .

Death to the saints is not a penalty, it is not destruction, it is not even a loss.

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No Need to Feed the Dead

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following selection is from "Feeding on the Bread of Life," a sermon preached at the Met Tab in London on Sunday evening 6 November 1881. The illustration with which Spurgeon opened this sermon came to mind while we were visiting the Capuchin crypt at Savoca, near Messina, Sicily, this morning.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life."—John 6:47, 48.

BSERVE carefully the order in which our Lord puts the two blessings he mentions;—first, life through believing on him, and then food to sustain that life;—first, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life;" and next to that, "I am that bread of life." Life comes first, and food follows afterwards. It is impossible for a dead man to feed, or to be fed; only the living can eat and drink.

I once went into the monastery of the Capuchins at Rome, and there I saw certain of the departed brotherhood dressed in their regular habits, although they had been dead, some of them a hundred years, some fifty, and one gentleman, I think, had scarcely been dead more than a year or so; but there they sat, with their breviaries in their hands, just as, if they had been alive; yet I did not see any preparations for feeding them. It would have been as ridiculous to attempt to feed them as it was to keep them there at all.



Now, when we preach the gospel, unless you have spiritual life, you cannot feed upon it; and if you were to come to the communion table, unless you were truly alive unto God, you might eat the bread, and drink the wine, but with real spiritual food, the body of Christ, and the blood of Christ, you could have nothing to do. We do not give food to people in order to make them live. That would be a useless experiment; but, because they are alive, they take food in order to sustain and nourish the life which is already in them. Always recollect, dear friends, that the best spiritual food in the world is useless to those who are spiritually dead; and one very essential part of the gospel is that truth which our Savior so plainly taught, "Ye must be born again." All attempts at feeding the soul are of no use until the new birth has been experienced; even that precious, priceless bread of life cannot be assimilated unless the soul has been quickened by the Spirit of God.

Judge, then, my hearers, whether you are alive unto God, or not. Before you can rightly know the truth, before you are qualified to learn its mysteries, pray that you may be made to live by faith in Jesus Christ; for before food comes life.

But, next, after life there must be food; for, just as surely as there will be no use for the food without the life, so will there be no continuance of the life without the food.

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Sempiternam Requiem

by Phil Johnson

o matter what else happens between now and the end of my life, I'm sure the past two weeks will stand out as a momentous chapter in the full story. I've had a taste of bitter sadness and glorious triumph all at once in a heaping spoonful. I've cried more and laughed more in two weeks' time than I typically would in a full year. Both the sorrow and the joy have been deeper than I ever imagined possible. And the whole experience has profoundly affirmed my conviction that God is both sovereign and good; "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Most regular Pyro readers know that my mom went to heaven a little more than a week ago. She had struggled with chronic muscle disease since the mid-1960s, and she needed supplementary oxygen constantly for the past decade. But she was still very active and busy. She and my dad traveled from Tulsa to Seattle in July for her youngest grandson's wedding. Though physically weak, she was tough in every other sense. I was not expecting her to die.

In fact, her death came as a terrible shock. She seemed fine at Christmas. Then just two weeks ago, doctors discovered she had stage-four lymphoma. It had already invaded her lungs, bones, and other organs. She was admitted to hospital that very day. Less than a week after the cancer was found, she was gone. The Lord graciously gave Darlene and me three precious days with Mom before she died. It was a wonderful opportunity to try to say all that was in our hearts. Then just before sunup last Friday, she went to heaven in her sleep.

I've written before about the odiousness of death. I have spoken at many funerals, and I even worked for a year or so in a funeral home. But in all my 55 years, death has never struck this close to home before. I despise death—and the sin that earns those dreadful wages—more than ever.

Still, the one thing my mom's death has made me think about most carefully is how extremely gracious the Lord has been to me and to my family. His grace was never more palpable than when Mom was dying—and ever since. I understand exactly what J. Gresham Machen meant when he dictated a cryptic telegram on his deathbed: "I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it."

And even in the wake of such a painful loss, I can say with absolute conviction: "He has done all things well" (Mark 7:37).

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To Fetch Me Home

posted by Frank Turk

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. It's a double-dose this weekend. The following excerpt is from "The Death of the Christian," a sermon on Job 5:26, delivered Sunday morning, 9 Sept 1855, at New Park Chapel, Southwark.

This morning, we shall consider the death of Christians in general; not of the aged Christian merely, for we shall show you that while this text does seem to bear upon the aged Christian, in reality it speaks with a loud voice to every man who is a believer. "Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season."

There are four things we shall mark in the text. First, we shall consider that death is inevitable, because it says, "Thou shalt come." Secondly, that death is acceptable, because it does not read, "I will make thee go to thy grave," but "thou shalt come there." Thirdly, that death is always timely: "Thou shalt come to thy grave in full age." Fourthly, that death to the Christian is always honourable, for the promise declareth to him, "Thou shalt go to thy grave in full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season."

I. The first remark, namely, that death, even to the Christian, is INEVITABLE, is very trite, simple and common, and we need scarcely have made it, but we found it necessary, in order to introduce one or two remarks upon it. How hackneyed is the thought, that all men must die, and therefore, what can we say upon it? And yet we blush not to repeat it, for while it is a truth so well known, there is none so much forgotten; while we all believe it in the theory and receive it in the brain, how seldom it is impressed on the heart? The sight of death makes us remember it. The tolling of the solemn bell speaks to us of it. We hear the deep-tongued voice of time as the bell tolls the hours and preaches our mortality. But very usually we forget it. ...

II. And now comes a sweet thought, that death to the Christian is always ACCEPTABLE—"Thou shalt come to thy grave." Old Caryl makes this remark on this verse—"A willingness and a cheerfulness to die. Thou shalt come, thou shalt not be dragged or hurried to thy grave, as it is said of the foolish rich man, Luke 12. This night shall thy soul be taken from thee. But thou shalt come to thy grave, thou shalt die quietly and smilingly, as it were; thou shalt go to thy grave, as it were upon thine own feet, and rather walk than be carried to thy sepulchre." The wicked man, when he dies, is driven to his grave, but the Christian comes to his grave. Let me tell you a parable. Behold two men sat together in the same house: when Death came to each of them. He said to one, "Thou shalt die."

The man looked at him—tears suffused his eyes, and tremblingly he said, "O Death, I cannot, I will not die." He sought out a physician, and said to him, "I am sick, for Death hath looked upon me. His eyes have paled my cheeks, and I fear I must depart. Physician, there is my wealth, give me health and let me live." The physician took his wealth, but gave him not his health with all his skill. The man changed his physician and tried another, and thought that perhaps he might spin out the thread of life a little longer. But, alas! Death came and said, "I have given thee time to try thy varied excuses, come with me; thou shalt die." And he bound him hand and foot, and made him go to that dark land of shades. As the man went, he clutched at every side post by the way; but Death, with iron hands, still pulled him on. There was not a tree that grew along the way but he tried to grasp it, but Death said, "Come on! thou art my captive, and thou shalt die." And unwillingly as the laggard schoolboy, who goeth slowly to school, so did be trace the road with Death. He did not come to his grave, but Death fetched him to it—the grave came to him.


But Death said to the other man, "I am come for thee." He smilingly replied, "Ah, Death! I know thee, I have seen thee many a time. I have held communion with thee. Thou art my Master's servant, thou hast come to fetch me home. Go, tell my Master I am ready; whene'er he pleases, Death, I am ready to go with thee.

A Christian has nothing to lose by death. You say he has to lose his friends. I am not so sure of that. Many of you have may more friends in heaven than on earth; some Christians have more dearly beloved ones above than below. You often count your family circle, but do you do as that little girl of whom Wordsworth speaks, when she said, "Master, we are seven." Some of them were dead and gone to heaven, but she would have it that they were all brothers and sisters still. Oh I how many brothers and sisters we have up stairs in the upper room in our Father's house; how many dear ones, linked with us in the ties of relationship, for they are as much our relations now as they were then! Though in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, yet in that great world, who has said that the ties of affection shall be severed, so that we shall not even there claim kindred with one another, as well as kindred with Jesus Christ? What have we to lose by death? ...

III. Then thirdly, the Christian's death is always TIMELY—"Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age." "Ah!" says one, "that is not true. Good people do not live longer than others. The most pious man may die in the prime of his youth." But look at my text. It does not say, thou shalt come to thy grave in old age—but in a "full age." Well, who knows what a "full age" is? A "full age" is whenever God likes to take his children home. There are some fruits you know that are late in coming to perfection, and we do not think their flavour is good till Christmas, or till they have gone through the frost; while some are fit for table now. All fruit: do not get ripe and mellow at the same season. So with Christians. They are at a "full age" when God chooses to take them home. They are at "full age" if they die at twenty one; they are not more if they live to be ninety. Some wines can be drunk very soon after the vintage. Others need to be kept. But what does this matter, if when the liquor is broached it is found to have its full flavour? God never broaches his cask till the wine has prefected itself. ...

IV. Now the last thing is, that a Christian will die with HONOUR: "Thou shalt come to thy grave like a shock of corn cometh in in his season." You hear men speak against funeral honours, and I certainly do enter my protest against the awful extravagance with which many funerals are conducted, and the absurdly stupid fashions that are often introduced. It would be a happy thing if some persons could break through them, and if widows were not obliged to spend the money which they need so much themselves, upon a needless ceremony, which makes death not honourable, but rather despicable. But, methinks that while death should not be flaunted out with gaudy plumes, there is such a thing as an honourable funeral which every one of us may desire to have.

... Your burial shall not be that prophesied for Jehoiakim—the burial of an ass, with none to weep over him; but devout men will assemble and say, "Here lies the deacon who for years served his Master so faithfully." "Here lies the Sunday-school teacher" will the child say "who early taught me the Saviour's name;" and if the minister should fall, methinks a crowd of people following him to the tomb would well give him such a funeral as a shock of corn hath when "it cometh in in his season." I believe we ought to pay great respect to the departed saints' bodies. "The memory of the just is blessed." And even ye little saints in the church, don't think you will be forgotten when you die. You may have no grave-stone; but the angels will know where you are as well without a grave-stone as with it. There will be some who will weep over you; you will not be hurried away, but will be carried with tears to your grave. ...

In a few years more you and I shall be carried through the ether on the wings of angels. Methinks I die, and the angels approach. I am on the wings of cherubs. Oh, how they bear me up—how swiftly and yet how softly. I have left mortality with all its pains. Oh, how rapid is my flight! Just now I passed the morning star. Far behind me now the planets shine. Oh, how swiftly do I fly, and how sweetly! Cherubs! what sweet flight is yours, and what kind arms are these I lean upon. And on my way ye kiss me with the kisses of love and affection. Ye call me brother. Cherubs; am I your brother? I who just now was captive in a tenement of clay—am I your brother? "Yes!" they say. Oh, hark! I hear music strangely harmonious! What sweet sounds come to my ears! I am nearing Paradise. 'Tis e'en so. Do not spirits approach with songs of joy? "Yes!" they say. And ere they can answer, behold they come—a glorious convoy! I catch a sight of them as they are holding a great review at the gates of Paradise. And, ah! there is the golden gate. I enter in; and I see my blessed Lord. I can tell you no more. All else were things unlawful for flesh to utter. My Lord! I am with thee—plunged into thee—lost in thee just as a drop is swallowed in the ocean—as one single tint is lost in the glorious rainbow! Am I lost in thee, thou glorious Jesus? And is my bliss consummated? Is the wedding-day come at last? Have I really put on the marriage garments? And am I thine? Yes! I am. There is nought else now for me. In vain your harps, ye angels. In vain all else. Leave me a little while. I will know your heaven by-and-bye. Give me some years, yea give me some ages to lean here on this sweet bosom of my Lord; give me half eternity, and let me bask myself in the sunshine of that one smile. Yes; give me this. Didst speak, Jesus? "Yes, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and now thou art mine! thou art with me." Is not this heaven? I want nought else. I tell you once again, ye blessed spirits, I will see you by-and-bye. But with my Lord I will now take my feast of loves. Oh, Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Thou art heaven! I want nought else. I am lost in thee!

Beloved, is not this to go to "the grave in full age, like as a shock of corn," fully ripe? The sooner the day shall come, the more we shall rejoice. Oh, tardy wheels of time! speed on your flight. Oh, angels, wherefore come ye on with laggard wings? Oh! fly through the ether and outstrip the lightning's flash! Why may I not die? Why do I tarry here? Impatient heart, be quiet a little while. Thou art not fit for heaven yet, else thou wouldst not be here. Thou hast not done thy work, else thou wouldst have thy rest. Toil on a little longer; there is rest enough in the grave. Thou shalt have it there. On! on!

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Memento Mori

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The excerpt at the end of this week's entry is from "Memento Mori," a sermon Spurgeon preached Sunday morning, 18 March 1860.

But first, the background of the sermon from which this paragraph was excerpted is described by Susannah Spurgeon in her husband's autobiography:

[Special] week-day services at the Tabernacle, Moorfields. . . were among the fixed engagements [Mr. Spurgeon devoted himself to] each year. Dr. John Campbell, who had long stood forth as the friend and advocate of the young Pastor, thus spoke of this annual visit:—"Every 365 days, Mr. Spurgeon and his dear companion and the two little Princes Imperial honour my family with their presence for a whole day. We count on it; it is a high day with us. By two sermons, on that occasion, Mr. Spurgeon almost entirely supports our City Mission at the Tabernacle." . . . Mr. Spurgeon referred to this happy compact in the following terms:—"It was always a great pleasure to me to have been associated with good old Dr. Campbell, the Editor of The British Banner. He was a very dear friend of mine. I used to preach for him every year, and it was understood that, when I went, I must take my dear wife and our two little boys with me. The day before we were to go, that great stern strong man, who had no mercy upon heretics, but would beat them black and blue,—I mean in a literary sense, not literally,—used to visit a toy-shop, and buy horses and carts or other playthings for the children. One time, when he sent the invitation for us all to go to his house, he wrote:—"Our cat has had some kittens on purpose that the boys may have something fresh to play with.' It showed what a kind heart the old man had when he took such pains to give pleasure to the little ones." One of the most memorable of these annual visits was paid on Wednesday, March 14, 1860. There had been, near that time, a great many serious accidents and notable sudden deaths. A mill in America had fallen, and buried hundreds of persons in the ruins. A train had left the rails, and great numbers of the passengers were in consequence killed. The captain of the largest vessel then afloat, who had been brought safely through many a storm, had just said farewell to his family when he fell into the water, and was drowned. A judge, after delivering his charge to the grand jury with his usual wisdom, calmness, and deliberation, paused, fell back, and was carried away lifeless. Mr. Corderoy, a well-known generous Christian gentleman, was suddenly called away, leaving a whole denomination mourning for him. Mr. Spurgeon's sermon—"Memento Mori"—at Exeter Hall, the following Lord's-day morning, contained a reference to these occurrences, and also to another which more directly affected Dr. Campbell. Preaching from the words, "O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" Mr. Spurgeon said:— It was but last Wednesday that I sat in the house of that mighty servant of God, that great defender of the faith, the Luther of his age,—Dr. Campbell; we were talking then about these sudden deaths, little thinking that the like calamity would invade his very family; but, alas! we observed, in the next day's paper, that his second son had been swept overboard while returning from one of his voyages to America. A bold brave youth has found a liquid grave. So that here, there, everywhere, O Death! I see thy doings. At home, abroad, on the sea, and across the sea, thou art at work. O thou mower! how long ere thy scythe shall be quiet? O thou destroyer of men, wilt thou never rest, wilt thou ne'er be still? O Death! must thy Juggernaut-car go crashing on for ever, and must the skulls and blood of human beings continue to mark thy track? Yes, it must be so till He comes who is the King of life and immortality; then the saints shall die no more, but be as the angels of God.

On Death

AN IS UNWILLING to consider the subject of death. The shroud, the mattock and the grave, he labors to keep continually out of sight. He would live here always if he could; and since he cannot, he at least will put away every emblem of death as far as possible from his sight. Perhaps there is no subject so important, which is so little thought of. Our common proverb that we use is just the expression of our thoughts, "We must live." But if we were wiser we should alter it and say, "We must die." Necessity for life there is not; life is a prolonged miracle. Necessity for death there certainly is, it is the end of all things. Oh that the living would lay it to heart!

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Drawing to an end

by Dan Phillips

The year 2007 draws to an end. And what else?

None of us knows what the next moment holds. "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring" (Proverbs 27:1). Whatever the next day brings, all the preceding days bring their mounting weight to bear on us.

Consider now the final words of Benazir Bhutto:

"Long live Bhutto," Benazir Bhutto shouted, waving to the crowd surging around her car. They were her last words before three gunshots rang out and she slumped back on to her seat.

"She did not say anything more," said Safdar Abbassi, her chief political adviser, who was sitting behind her.

"Long live Bhutto" — bang! — dead.

And then? Then Benazir Bhutto found herself facing her Judge (Hebrews 9:27). Was she prepared?

At the moment, I'm less concerned about her than about you and me. The only difference between Bhutto and us is a tick, a moment, a flash. We all stand before the Judge just as surely as she. We don't know the time on the summons, but we do know that we won't miss our court appearance date by so much as a second.

And what do we bring? In the best movie version of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge hears Marley's lament about the many and heavy chains he wears, and murmurs "You have my sympathy." Marley's response:

"Ahh — you do not know the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself. It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah! it is a ponderous chain!"

Whatever the theological shortcomings of Christmas Carol (and they are many and serious), I appreciate this: Scrooge is vividly shown to be utterly unaware that he is judged, as he stands; that his life has already borne fruit, and that fruit is bitter, woeful, deadly.

This is the state of men today. We read, "whoever does not believe is condemned already" (John 3:18). Worse, and more ominously, John reveals that "whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:36) — now, at this moment, as he draws this fleeting breath which, for all he knows, may be his last. What Daniel said to Belshazzar, he might well say to us: "the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored" (Daniel 5:23).

"Long live me!" — poof! — gone. Gone to judgment.

Someone has just read those words, and they are for you. Your condition is just so. Whatever your pursuits and distractions over the past year, the reality is that you are a step away from a judgment that is absolute, final, inescapable, irrevocable, and incapable of appeal. Were you to die now, the ax would fall, and that would be that. Forever. You need to come to know God, now.

But lest my Christian readers (and self) feel too safe, consider that the same principle applies to us equally, and perhaps even more so. Never forget:

"Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more" (Luke 12:48)

Perhaps you read this blog daily, and other writings of men far better than the current one. Good, and God be praised. But never forget: as you and I read, our responsibility-index goes up. It is happening now, right now, to you, and to me.

The words of Hebrews 9:27 ("it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment") do not bring a message to unbelievers alone, but to us as well. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil" (2 Corinthians 5:10). And how does this consideration affect the apostle who wrote it? Does Paul go on to say, "But never mind that, the blood covers all, I'm eternally secure, so I'm going for what I see to be my best life right now"?

Not so much. Paul's very next words are, "Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:11). The apostle of free forensic justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone found the reality of God's judgment both sobering and motivating.

So I call us all, as the year draws to a close, to consider the judgment of God, and to consider our lives in that context. The statistics are pretty good that not all who read these words now will be here to read any similar post next year's end. Nor may I be here to write one. Benazir Bhutto's last words were a futile wish for earthly longevity, words that were instantly given the lie.

John Piper's idea is better. Piper uses New Year's Eve as a dress-rehearsal for his own death, considering his year in the light of God's judgment, and eternity.

Do that, or use another idea. But do something.

Tick tick tick.....

"For man does not know his time.
Like fish that are taken in an evil net,
and like birds that are caught in a snare,
so the children of man are snared at an evil time,
when it suddenly falls upon them"
(Ecclesiastes 9:12)

POSTSCRIPT: some of last year's closing thoughts can be found here and here; and a previous year from my blog here.

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A Reason to Hate Sin

by Phil Johnson



friend of mine learned on Thanksgiving Day that he has terminal cancer. I visited him in the hospital that afternoon, and he was devastated. Doctors had discovered an inoperable tumor during surgery, and they simply stitched him back up. He now has all the pain and none of the benefit from that surgical procedure, which was extremely invasive. He was not much improved when I saw him again a couple of days later—after I had been to a memorial service for another friend's father.

So I've been thinking a lot recently about the frailty and the shortness of our human existence—and how sad death is, even for the Christian.

Of course, Christians understand that death is a consequence of sin, and death's sorrow ought to be a universal reminder of how evil sin is. The fruits of humanity's rebellion against God are invariably bitter, tragic, painful, and ugly—and death is the culmination of it all: sin's wages. We all know the pain of loss from death, or we will at some time in our lives. It is simply impossible to live a long life in a sin-cursed world without being assaulted with the sorrow and tragedy of human loss. Even Jesus felt that pain, and He wept at the death of His friend Lazarus (John 11:35).

Have you ever wondered why He was weeping? It could not be just grief over the loss of Lazarus, because He was about to bring Lazarus back to life. Yet it's clear from Scripture that His tears signified real sorrow.

So what was He mourning about?

Surely He was grieving over the effects of sin on people He loved. He was sorrowing over the ravages of evil on His creation. He was thus identifying with those whom He loved, even in their anguish. "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15). He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And at Lazarus's grave He felt the full weight of anguish over the sinfulness of the human condition. He was deeply and sincerely moved by it.

Death is a horrible enemy. Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 15:26 that death is "The last enemy that shall be destroyed." And when you sit with someone who is dying slowly, you come face to face with the fact that death is a formidable, tyrannical, universal foe. The searing pain and sadness of death seem almost unbearable at times. If we thought about it in merely human, earthly terms, we might be tempted to become chronically melancholy and despondent.

But Scripture gives us both hope and a reason to rejoice, even in the midst of the gloom of death. Remember: it was in this very same context that Jesus made one of His most glorious promises about His victory over death and hell. He told Lazarus's devastated sister Martha: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" (John 11:25-26). He meant, of course, that believers can never die spiritually, and that even their physical death is only a temporary condition.

But that promise, glorious as it is, does not erase death's temporal sorrows. It did not even keep Jesus Himself from weeping. The short verse that records His sorrow over Lazarus's death comes just ten verses after He made that promise. We who cling to that promise likewise still have profound sorrows, but thankfully, our sorrow is not a hopeless sorrow (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Pondering the universality of death and the inevitability of it, I have to wonder what certain Emergent leaders could possibly be thinking when they systematically try to downplay the hope of heaven and urge Christians to be more concerned with earthly matters.

Indeed, "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable" (1 Corinthians 15:19).

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Raising the Dead

by Phil Johnson

arlier in the week, we began observing a series of surprising plot-turns in 1 Kings 17:17-24. Elijah's presence in a widow's home had resulted in life-saving daily provisions for her. But then, unexpectedly, her little boy died. In response, she angrily and uncharacteristically lashed out at Elijah. In the process made a stunning confession of her own guilt.

Elijah's response is also surprising. Verse 19: "And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed."

Elijah was by nature a man of strong passion. He was on occasion a hot-tempered man. In 1 Kings 18, we read about Elijah taking vengeance against the wicked prophets of Baal by killing 850 of Jezebel's favorite Baal-priests. In 2 Kings 1, he calls down fire from heaven twice, and each time he destroyed a company of fifty men. Elijah had little patience with sinful unbelief. He was not generally known for gentleness when he responded to the taunts and challenges of unbelievers.

But his answer to this grieving widow's angry outburst was the very model of a soft answer that turns away wrath. He took no notice whatsoever of her insulting and unkind words. His entire reply to her is only two words in the Hebrew. "Give me your son."

And with that, he took the boy's corpse and retired to his room in the attic of the woman's house, where he would pour out his deepest passions alone before God.

We might have expected a fiery prophet like Elijah to answer the widow firmly and possibly harshly. But instead, his response was tender and compassionate and gentle.

Elijah's own grief in this situation is obviously profound. And in fact, his prayer to God is yet another surprise:

"And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son? And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again" (1 Kings 17:20-21).

The prayer is surprising for several reasons—most notably the boldness of Elijah's request. No one in the history of the world had ever before died, and then been resuscitated from the dead. This is the first incident in scripture where a dead person came back to life.

So it took an extraordinarily bold faith for Elijah to ask for such a thing. But I also want you to notice the surprising way he sought this miracle from God.

First, he did his praying entirely in private. He didn't exploit this incident for publicity. He didn't make any public display of raising the boy from the dead. Even after the miracle occurred, he didn't parade the boy in public as an example of his miracle powers. Instead, he went through this whole ordeal in the privacy of his own loft, which was the most private venue he knew.

In fact, Elijah seems to have deliberately prayed in complete solitude for this miracle. He didn't even invite the widow to join him in prayer. He took the matter to God alone. Remember, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (James 5:16). It's not necessary to enlist everybody you know to pray in order to get answers to your prayers—as if God could be persuaded by popular opinion. Jesus expressly taught that being wordy or ostentatious will not help our prayers be heard. Neither will dragging private matters into a public venue. Matthew 6:6: "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." That was exactly Elijah's approach in this situation.

What is even more remarkable here is the way Elijah took that dead child from his mother into his own heart. Remember that in Old Testament Israel, the bodies of the dead were ceremonially defiling. Because this was such a defiling thing, the law expressly prohibited priests from ever touching any dead bodies. Here's Leviticus 21:1-4:

And the LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people: But for his kin, that is near unto him, that is, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, And for his sister a virgin, that is nigh unto him, which hath had no husband; for her may he be defiled. But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.

Even among non-priests, no one would normally touch a dead body except for the family members who were responsible to prepare the body for burial.

So by clasping this little boy's body to his heart, Elijah was breaking Jewish convention. But he was in effect accepting this widow and her son as his own family—even though the woman was a Gentile from a pagan background. He was bearing her burden. He was sharing in her grief. And the threat of ceremonial defilement would not deter him from this gesture of identification with that woman and her son.

So Elijah carried the lifeless boy up into his loft and laid him on his own bed. And there, it says, "He stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD." Here was total identification with the dead child.

A generation later, in similar circumstances, Elijah's successor, Elisha, had occasion to pray for the life of another little boy who died. Second Kings 4 describes that incident. And it says Elisha "went in . . . and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the LORD. And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child [became] warm."

That's the same picture we get of Elijah here—stretched out over the child, mouth to mouth, hands to hands, as if he himself wanted to breathe into the corpse the breath of life again, and as if the warmth of his body could be transferred back to the cold corpse and revive the boy.

And Elijah passionately besought God, "O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again."
May I point out what a perfect illustration this boy is of the plight of unbelievers? Scripture says they are dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). Here is the very picture of death. This boy was no longer capable of responding to any stimulus. Despite the intensity of his passions, regardless of how many times Elijah stretched out on him or tried to restore warmth to his cold body, that corpse had no ability whatsoever to respond. Only God could restore life to the dead boy. And until God did restore the soul to the body, all Elijah's techniques were utterly powerless to elicit a response.

That is precisely how it is with unbelievers. They are spiritually dead, and nothing but the sovereign work of God in their hearts can awaken them from that state. All our tender pleading and evangelistic appeals are fruitless unless God sovereignly regenerates that person. We were not born again in response to our faith. Rather, it was the regenerating work of God in our hearts that elicited the response of faith.

Someone will inevitably ask, "Then what's the point of evangelism? What's the point of pleading with the lost to believe? Why should we expend any effort at all witnessing to people who have no capacity to respond unless God first awakens them to faith?

You might as well ask why Elijah went through the motions of stretching himself out over this child. Could God have raised the child without Elijah's body heat? Of course. But these were the means through which God chose to work. He allowed Elijah to participate in the miracle. That does not diminish the fact that the regenerating work that took place was the work of God and God alone.

So it is with our salvation. God uses external means. He employs His word and the gospel message to reason with sinners, to plead with them, and to beseech them to be reconciled to God. But apart from a miracle of regeneration, not one sinner would ever respond to the gospel plea. Remember that when you're sharing the gospel, and be sure to do what Elijah did here: take the case to God, and ask Him to work that miracle of regeneration and open the unbeliever's heart to receive the truth. Otherwise you are merely pleading with a spiritual corpse.

Elijah's prayer of faith was answered. Here's the final surprise in this chapter:

And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth (vv. 22-24).

The child comes back to life. I'll confess to you that if I had been standing there watching this scene, I would have been thinking it was utterly hopeless.

After all, why did God allow the boy to die in the first place, if His purpose was only to bring him to life again?

And by the way, for any skeptics inclined to think this was merely a near-death experience, and Elijah raised the boy with a kind of rudimentary CPR treatment, the language of Scripture is clear. The boy was dead. His soul had departed from his body.

Remember, this was the first-ever case of anyone returning from the dead. Yet Elijah's faith staggered not at the magnitude of the miracle he was seeking from God.

He knew God to be gracious, compassionate, and righteous. And so he pleaded with God on the basis of those attributes. He could not fathom that it would be God's ultimate purpose to kill this widow's only son after she had shown hospitality to God's prophet. So he was emboldened to pray that God would return the boy's life.

God granted the miracle.

Notice the woman's testimony: "Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth."

Whether she was a genuine believer prior to this incident is not clear. Some commentators say no; others say yes. It may be that she had already come to saving faith, but her faith was weak and immature. Or this may be the first genuine expression of genuine faith in her heart. Either way, this miracle had the effect of strengthening her faith and deepening her assurance.

So what began as a dark providence and a painful tragedy ends with this woman glorifying God and celebrating His bountiful goodness.

And I especially like Elijah's response. He just hands her the boy and says, "Look. Your son is alive." Always a man of few words. But you can bet that inside, he was as deliriously happy and as grateful as the widow.

Next week, I'll post a series of short practical applications drawn from this passage.

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Dying: a different perspective

by Dan Phillips

The first jarring, radical blow to my young Christian faith came in the person of Todd.

Todd was a delightful little single-digiter when I met him in the early '70's. Todd, just as cute as could be, freely told me about God and his faith in God, what he knew about God. It contrasted with several older and supposedly wiser folks to whom I was trying to bear witness.

Fast-forward months later, and there was a party at Todd's house. A Christian band was performing, the neighborhood was invited, it was very nice. A neighbor whom I barely knew said something like, "Sad about Todd, isn't it?"

I blinked. "Sad?" Huh?

"About his cancer."

Stunned, I learned that Todd had lung cancer. I couldn't believe it. Todd? Little Todd? Todd had just sat down and visited with me. He had seemed fine — but lung cancer? I thought that was something only old cigarette smokers got. (Turns out that he was around smokers, if I recall correctly — though that's not a necessary corollary.)

Fast-forward again. Quite some time later, I visited Todd at his folks' home. It was one of the most devastating scenes I've ever witnessed. I really don't want to write the details, except to say this: Todd was not fading away gently, looking wistfully Heavenward, softly making deep and wistful observations—like in the movies I'd always seen. No movie prepared me for this. It was horrifying, and I was badly shaken.

Not too long after, he died.

As I recall, Todd was just seven years old. My youngest is seven, now, I reflect, and pray for him again.

I was already planning to be a pastor at the time. But what to make of this, as a Christian, let alone as someone who some day would be trying (!) to be of some use to people in that position? Or, as the child of smokers, one day myself being in that position?

This is not going to be a theodicy; I just want to share one thing I read at the time, as I tried to make doctrinal and practical sense of it.

I read a book on ministering pastorally to cancer patients. It historically traced the attitude folks used to have towards dying. I learned that our forefathers' attitude was not the same as ours today.

Most of us, I presume, would say that we do not so much fear death as we fear dying. We fear a dehumanizing, drawn-out, agonizing, financially-devastating process. Our "dream death" — odd phrase, that — is a quick death. You know: Sky Lab falls on us, or a whale. Something in our brain blows out, and bam! we drop like a lead sinker in a pond on a summer day. We throw ourselves in front of someone taking a shot at a loved one, and are instantly killed. That's our dream-death.

Not so, our forebears. Their "dream death" was a slow death.

Why? We recoil from the suggestion.

I think it was because they had a sense of judgment and responsibility that we don't have. A slow death announced its coming. It's like getting a "five-minute-warning." A slow death gives the opportunity to prepare for the judgment of God. It gives occasion for trying to sort out any unsorted relationships, saying last words, arranging our affairs fully. It gives opportunity to prepare in the sight of the pulling of the last curtain on this life.

Knowledge of impending death was their Isaiah the prophet, announcing to Hezekiah, "Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live" (Isaiah 38:1).

Our forebears wouldn't envy our longed-for quick death, our abrupt exit that leaves no time to prepare. That would be a sad death, to them.

Reading that broadened my perspective... but I'd be lying if I said it has made me feel different about the prospect!

But I think something else, too. Should we really need that kind of warning?

Isn't our first heartbeat a "warning pistol"? Maybe we don't have five minutes left, but on the scale of eternity, is there really that much of a difference between five minutes and a hundred years? Isn't it true that "you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes" (James 4:14)?

The statistics are pretty doggoned overwhelming: unless the Lord comes for us, our first heartbeat is #1 of a finite series, a series that has a fixed, definite and unalterable number known to God. While you've read this article, your total number of heartbeats has likely gone down by several hundred.

What... you didn't know that?

I must say, most seem to live as if they don't. Most live as if life will go on as-is, forever—though they know as a detached fact that it surely won't. When people ask me whether it was dangerous being a private investigator, I tell them the most dangerous part was driving the freeways of Los Angeles. People drive as if life is a video game, where if your "blip" explodes, you can just casually put in some more money and go again.

Yet such is not life. The beer commercial is only half-right: you only go around once in life. Then comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). Usually there is no warning-sign, no "Five minutes, Mr. Phillips."

Surely this is the wisdom at the heart of Solomon's craggy observation that "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart" (Ecclesiastes 7:2).

Whatever our cosmic eschatology is, our personal eschatology had better keep that truth in the forefront. However imminent the Lord's coming is to the world, or whatever it may involve, our going to stand before Him surely is imminent.

Best be prepared.

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Not now. Not then, neither

by Dan Phillips

My family loves C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Some of our favorite characters are really only mentioned in passing: the Bulgy Bears.

It's just a great name, and they're so comical every time they touch the narrative. My wife and I particularly love this, from chapter seven of Prince Caspian:

"I don't like the idea of running away," said Caspian.

"Hear him! Hear him!" said the Bulgy Bears. "Whatever we do, don't let's have any running. Especially not before supper; and not too soon after it, neither."

That's our motto, too. The Bulgy Bears are sort of a theme in and out of things as well. My family calls my weekly special-recipe burgers alternately "Daddy Burgers" and "Bulgy Burgers®." (Nobody's running anywhere after one of them!)

No running before supper. And not too soon after, neither.

Very tangentially, I thought of this in reading three posts by Pastor Chris Anderson. In a way that is characteristically moving and thought-provoking on a number of levels, Chris gives the before (and before) and after of a funeral he just conducted. The very difficult occasion was that of the suicide of the husband of a woman who attends his church with her children.

The aspect I single out today is this:

I’ve preached one other funeral following a suicide. It was extremely tough. It was clear that well over half the people in attendance were offended at my taking the opportunity to present the gospel–a feeling every pastor will know sometime, and probably often.

A funeral audience, offended that one of Christ's undershepherds would preach the only One to conquer death — at a funeral! Remarkable.

Remarkable, nonsensical, irrational, but evidently pretty common. The two funerals at which I preached were difficult also. I preached the Gospel at both, but I was spared any complaints.

But Chris' story, in turn, made me think of a friend who (like me) lost his father to cancer.

My friend is the only one in his family to evidence any saving faith, to his concern and sorrow. During his father's final illness, a relative wrote a letter to my friend's father, bearing witness to Christ.

My friend's mother was very offended that someone would write about eternal things at such a time.

"At such a time"? When better?, I wondered.

The truth of the matter is, we are all, always, in exactly "such a time." We are one moment, one incident, one tick of the clock, away from eternity. Less.

For he says, "In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
(2 Corinthians 6:2)

It is sad that worldlings so diagnose their case that they confidently conclude that what they need most, when they most need it, is the last thing they need.

The real crime, the insanity, is when Christians -- who know better, and who know how blitheringly awful we sons of Adam are at self-diagnosis -- should ever let ourselves be intimidated into silence.

Of course they will be offended. The Cross is an offense (1 Corinthians 1:18-25), and not just at funerals. Of course they will say we are insensitive and foolish; the fragrance of Heaven is the stench of death to the lost, until God sovereignly transforms their spiritual senses (2 Corinthians 2:15-16).

We preach Jesus to such, not because of what they think He is, but because of what God thinks He is; not because they want Him, but because they need Him.

Thank God for men like Chris, for women like Candy -- for all who love people enough graciously and wisely to tell them what they need to hear, whether they want to hear it at the moment or not.

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