One Appointment, One Death, One Chance

I have the distinct privilege to take part in this occasion that honors the life of Uncle John. Upon hearing the news of Uncle John, Aunt Sue called me and asked me to do the funeral, and of course I said, “yes.” So on this past Monday I went to Aunt Janie’s house and talked with her. I our conversation we talked about all the things that Uncle John liked such as NASCAR and his favorite car, ole number 20-Tony Stewart the Home Depot car. She shared with me about how uncle John loved to fish and to be outside. The stories about how he was a young boy taking walks with his dad through the woods were told, even so many years after he was a man. Those are a few things that I did not know or at least I did not know much about them but what I did know about Uncle John was that he was big man, one that when you looked at him, you knew he could take care of business. A man that you knew did not mind getting his hands dirty. This was the man that I got to witness first hand that would stick with his wife no matter what. When Aunt Janie was in the hospital I saw this man prove true the phrase “talk is cheap”. Uncle John’s love for Aunt Janie was shown through his actions, he stuck with her through thick and through thin. And as I listened to the stories shared by Aunt Janie and saw the look on her face for the loss of her love my heart began to hurt and I wondered how could I help this hurting heart?

The comfort comes to us through the Word of God. Hebrews chapter 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” And through this scripture I want to give you three things to think about as you leave this place and you start your way down the road. They are as follows:

1. One Appointment

2. One Death

3. One Chance

The Bible says that we are appointed once to die. We are appointed. This means that we have an appointment. Now we all know what an appointment is. Appointments are what we do on a daily basis. We schedule a time to go to work and come home from work. We schedule the time that we will eat and go to sleep. We schedule appointments with doctors and so on and so forth. But this appointment that is talked about here is an appointment that is a bit different. You see with an appointment with your doctor, you can cancel it but not the appointment that is spoken of here in the Bible. This appointment is written in stone. It is a done deal. And I have to tell you that this appointment that is carved in stone even before you were born. You see Uncle John had an appointment with God that was decided and written in stone before he was even born. God knew that on June 3, 2005 Uncle John had an appointment. And have to tell you that God does not make mistakes. God is perfect in every way, He did not make a mistake. John’s appointment was already scheduled. His appointment was right on time because God scheduled it. God is an on time God. And it’s funny because when I was talking to Aunt Janie she said that Uncle John was probably waiting on God because Uncle John was always early to appointments. I got a good laugh out of that.

So we know that we have One Appointment which is etched in stone but we also know that we only have One Death. There are two things promised to us in this life, that is birth and death. Death is the very frailty of life. It is something that no one can really explain because, think about it, when someone that is old dies we say that they died because of their age. But then how do we explain those who die at a young age? Or how about the person who is diseased with illness? We say they died of illness, but how do we explain the death of a perfectly healthy person? Death not only can not be explained (outside of God’s Word), but it also causes fear for many. The question arises, “what will life after death belike?” What will we do in Heaven? Will we have our little wings and our halo? Will we have to work or will we just sit around? And a very important question that needs to asked is, will there be chocolate in Heaven. Heaven can’t really be Heaven without it, right? The not knowing about the things of Heaven begins to show us how little control we have and that brings fear. So with death we see that it can not be explained, it causes fear, and also it only occurs once. Again as we talked about earlier this one death does not happen by accident. It is planned. It is written in stone. In the Bible we see that there is a season or a time for everything. Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.