Dying declarations
“Nemo moriturus praesumitur mentire”! Now is this Latin maxim, all “Greek and Latin” to my congregation? I can “justifiably” empathize with those not in touch with the “World of Justice” for it is the Latin maxim carrying a lot of relevance to only men donning black and white coats and honorable Judges carrying gavel. It simply means a man will not meet his Maker with a lie in his mouth, as such the final last words of any dying individual involved in a case carries lot of legal sanctity. That there are many instances’ of they (Dying declarations) totally tilting the legal proceedings one-way or the other is an indisputable fact! Section 32 (1) of Indian Evidence Act, deals with the significance of the Dying declarations.
Now let’s switch tracks and come to the spiritual realm. The famous last words of many a Biblical giant are of special significance to us, for they are not only truly authentic but also highly inspirational. While “aspire to inspire before you expire” is a catchy, insightful one-liner, when it comes to the lives of numerous heroes’ of faith, it is how they expired with motivational words seemingly on their dying lips, which leaves an indelible impression in us all. In this sermon, I intend to capture and encapsulate the final moments of some of Biblical stalwarts including the GREATEST OF EM’ ALL, drawing valuable lessons in the process…
1. Prophecy: Jacob, the Patriarch from who descended the twelve tribes of Israel was anything but truthful most of his life. His victims of deception included amongst others his own father, elder brother (Genesis 25:30-34/27) and father-in-law, who himself was no mean schemer (Genesis 29:16-25/30:25-43). Hence, it comes as no surprise that even after his life-transforming experience of “wrestling with the Celestial One” and “exchanging” his own limited strength for that of Divine (Genesis 32:22-32), Jacob himself falls prey to the deception of his own sons. If anything, in the incident described in Genesis 37:12-35, the truth emerges that “Sowing-reaping” principle catches up with everyone…even with a Chosen one like Jacob, making a wrongdoer invariably taste “the bitterness of his own medicine”.
Now, it is another matter that even the slips and falls of His chosen ones’ are woven skillfully into the tapestry of Eternity by the Master weaver all with a purpose of bringing out a greater beautiful design later. While we with the benefit of hindsight would know that what was heartbreak for Jacob, was actually breakthrough for Joseph, (Genesis 45:4-10), it is stirring prophecy of Jacob in his death bed (Genesis 48-49), which would capture the imagination of any Bible student. This deceiver had come a long, a long way growing strong in his relationship with His Creator post the Wrestling encounter. The personal tragedies like early demise of his beloved life Rachael and the painful separation from his favorite son Joseph only brought about a greater refining influence in him, which can be discerned from a marked change in his demeanor in his final years.
There he was all conviction and authority even as his life was ebbing away in his death bed, calling spade a spade, when it came to some of his unruly sons and eventually gazing far into the future, one last time, he comes up with a faith-filled Messianic Prophecy of Millennium times!
“The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is His” (Genesis 49:10- also refer Rev 5:1-5). Now this Prophecy reveals not only his unshakeable faith in the Redemption plan of the Almighty for the fallen mankind but also faith in the ushering of a just reign in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ, for only during that period would the nations obey Him!
Not a soul, who knew Jacob the “deceiver’s” formative years, would have envisaged such a glorious end in his life. It only reinforces the fact, that as much as the beginning is important in the spiritual scheme of things, the end is also equally vital. Yes, Jacob post the watershed experience of an ethereal wrestling bout had spiritually grown, so much in his reverence for the Lord that the Omniscient One had made known His covenant (reign of the Messiah) to Him (Psalm 25:14 NKJV)!
2. Brevity: Joseph’s spiritual life unlike that of his father was marked by consistency, not seen in any of the patriarchs of the OT times, who all revealed a feet of clay at different times. Every much in consistency with his shining character are the last prophetic words of Joseph, as he neared the end of his life. It is the brevity of his last message, which stands out revealing to us all clarity of his vision, as regards the future of his brethren, in a foreign Land. Encompassed in just two verses (48 and 49 of Genesis 50) is his Prophetic statement of faith in the redemptive plan of the Sovereign God. So powerful was his conviction about Israel’s path to freedom from Egypt (all the more amazing since, since God did not speak to him directly-Joseph would have most probably “HEARD” about this Divine promise from His father Jacob) that he made his brothers’ promise that they would carry his bones, when they leave Egypt. Many years later, we find Moses keeping that promise in Exodus 13:19 and finally we see in Joshua 24:32, the mortal remains of Joseph being laid to rest in the Promised Land. Oh how the spirit of Joseph would have rejoiced to see that happen in the celestial abode now inside an IMMORTAL BODY!
If the Lord tarries, extending the Grace age, as it were and we would have to depart from the Earthly stage, due to old age, would our dying declaration spoken with conviction to the concerned around our bed be “The Lord would transform my buried dead bones into a glorious body and take it from the bowels of this “Egypt” (read Earth) to the “Heavenly Canaan” at the sound of the trumpet on the blessed Rapture day” (I Thess 4:13-18)! We have “HEARD” it from apostle Paul, right?
3. Availability: The farewell message of Moses, as the children of Israel, were at the threshold of the Promised Land, is what the Book of Deuteronomy all about. The amazing aspect of that moving speech does not lie in Moses’ taking a lengthy inventory of his followers’ obedience graph in the last 40 years nor does it lie in his frequent and fervent pleas’ to the people of Israel to walk in the “straight and narrow”. Yes, they do punctuate his passionate speech but THE MOST AMAZING THING ABOUT THAT PARTING SPPECH IS THE SPEECH ITSELF! Many years ago, had not same Moses cited his “stammering” debility as a disqualification for taking up any leadership role (Exodus 4:10)? Now we see the same Moses “THE STAMMERER” giving the longest recorded speech in the Bible! We see Moses speaking through 33 of the 34 chapters in Deuteronomy, with eloquence, which was at once unmistakable! Now if this does not leave one speechless, what would!
The words of the Scripture that God transforms the weakness of His faithful ones’ into their strength (Heb 11:34) never ring more true than in the case of man of speech impairment giving the longest recorded speech in the Bible after being Divinely strengthened! In God’s service, more than the ability, it is the availability, which counts. Once, we give ourselves to Him, with all our innate frailties, His strength would flow through us in overflowing measure for the World to marvel at (2 Cor 12:8-10)! In the First century AD, pray tell me who turned the World upside down? Not the most elite Athenian philosophers’ with long flowing robes of those times, but the surrendered weak ones’ with little or no formal education, much less any pretense of rubbing shoulders with the scholarly folk! Not the mighty soldiers carrying gleaming swords on horseback but the unarmed feeble men, who were more adept in spreading the fishing nets in the Galilean sea! NEED ANY OTHER PROOF, OTHER THAN HISTORY!
4. Exemplary: All throughout his life, barring a minor blip here and there (for which he cannot be wholly blamed…like falling for the Gibeonites’ guile) Joshua who stepped into the huge shoes of Moses was an exemplary leader. He led the tiring conquest of Canaan, literally and figuratively speaking “from the front”. Not for him, the cool shade of a tent, faraway from the blazing war front (Joshua 6-12) when his soldiers were shedding their blood and sweat in fighting the enemies. No wonder then, even towards the end of his life we see him coming up with an exemplary, emphatic statement in his rousing swan song speech “…as for me and my family, we will serve THE LORD” (Joshua 24:15)! Leading from the front and setting an example was this great leader, even as it were, with his dying breath (he would die very soon Joshua 24:29)! Die, he did soon, BUT ARE NOT HIS WORDS IMMORTALISED IN THAT THEY ADORN THE ROOMS OF INNUMERABLE CHRISTIAN HOMES EVEN TODAY ENSHRINED INVARIABLY IN A SCENIC PLAQUE? What would be Joshua’s declaration, had he been living today? Do not regard my words as those making up a mere decorative ornament, rather TAKE EM’ SERIOUSLY!
5. Certainty: It was the certainty in Stephen’s dying words of stepping into the Heavenly portals, which would have made an impression on any neutral onlooker, for it seemed at that moment facing his ruthless killers’ that the Church’s first martyr was gazing into the very face of His Master. “…Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 8:55 and 56). Oh how true, the one who looks into the Saviour’s face, can bravely look into the face of death itself, for death holds no terror to him. For a Christian martyr, death is not the master, which shoves him into the hellfire, rather it is a humble servant ushering Him into the Master’s presence!
6. Victory: “I have fought the good fight…” (II Tim 4:7), oh how this proclamation of victory by Apostle Paul in the last leg of his earthly journey, still continues to inspire us. Not for him any shedding of cold sweat, with execution imminent, rather only expression of concern for the fledgling Churches he had planted. In his final epistle to his young disciple Timothy, we see him exhorting his protégé to follow the example of a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer - 2 Tim 2:3-7 -passionately in Christian service! If for our Ex-Prime Minister Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri the winning slogan was “Jai Jawan, Jai Kissan”, for apostle Paul, it could well have been “Go about God’s work like a Jai Jawan, Jai Kissan and a Jai Pehelwan”. Do not Paul’s Final words heralding victory still continue to challenge us…. even after two thousand years…with the truth that the END IN THE SPIRITUAL RACE IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE START, especially when we consider the grim reality, just a few verses away ….the fall of Paul’s associate in the Ministry namely Demas (II Tim 4:10), who had made a good start (Col 4:14, Philemon 1:24)?
7. Voluntary: Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last (Luke 23:46).
Now we come to the GREATEST OF EM ALL! While, it is true that that our Lord carried the Cross physically only in the last stage of his life, the foreknowledge that He would die an excruciating death on the cross from his early childhood was a cross in itself, all throughout His life. No wonder, He spoke about it often…sometimes with pent-up feelings albeit always with an air of surrender to the will of the Father (John 2:19, Matt 12:39-40, Luke 9:22, John 12:23-28)! ALL OF US, WHO DO NOT KNOW WHEN WE WOULD DIE OR HOW, DO NOT HAVE THIS CROSS TO CARRY! Let’s thank God for that, for in his mercy He hides these grim details from us! But the heart of the matter is that our Saviour to whom no privileges were given (Heb 2:10) carried this additional pain in His heart!
And when the defining moment arrived, just as He had prophesied that He would voluntarily lay down His life (John 10:17-18), HE DID SO, TRIUMPHANTLY! Psychiatrists tell us that the desire to live is so inherent in everyone that even amongst those who commit suicide, in the last seconds, struggle for life is conspicuously seen but that struggle for living was so conspicuous by its absence in the case of the Redeemer! Even in dying, He was supernatural! There was no struggle, whatsoever! Just plain, child-like trust in the Father! Oh to live and die like Him!
Every mature believer had throughout the Church age imbibed the fact that one is ready to live for Christ, only when he/she is ready to die for Him! Hence the glorious dying declaration of a contemporary Christian martyr- Jim Elliot- full of creative insight also comes as no surprise “He is no fool, of who gives up what he cannot keep (physical life), to gain what he cannot lose (Eternal life)”.
Not for Christ any admirers or fans but only adherents and steadfast followers. It is said that only thing certain in this life, is it’s uncertainty. Is not even 100 years brevity in terms of Eternity? Absolutely! With glorious future stretching out before us (I Cor 2:9) let’s resolve like Apostle Paul to glorify God both in life and in our dying declarations (Romans 14:8)! TO THE CREATOR, REDEEMER AND THE COMFORTER BE ALL THE GLORY! HALLELUJAH! Now praising God should never go out of fashion…EVEN AFTER WE DIE!
(Suresh Manoharan)
www.jandsmministries.com
