A young Harvard professor sat in a room once occupied by
George Washington. He was exceedingly lonely and dejected. He
wondered if that great man ever felt as he did then. He had lost his
wife 3 years before, and had not yet been able to escape from the grip
of grief. His life seemed to be an empty dream, and though he was
also a poet he no longer had any heart for poetry. As he sat there
looking out of the window he realized he had to stop nursing his
despondency and get up and get going.
Almost as if he was inspired his poetic began to pour forth lines
that lifted him, and have since lifted millions. No poem ever became
so famous so fast. It was taught in schools, discussed in pulpits, and on
platforms all over the world. It was translated into many languages.
At one time a poll revealed it to be the favorite poem of this nation,
and even now it is heard quite often. I want to share just a portion of
Longfellow's poem, The Psalm Of Life.
"Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is not dead that slumbers, And things are not what they
seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust
thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow Finds us further than today.
Trust no future, how e'er pleasant! Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, -act in the living present! Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime And,
departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints,
that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and
shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up
and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."
We want to look back to a great man who left behind footprints in
the sands of time. They were footprints that have done just what
Longfellow predicted they could. They have caused many a forlorn
and shipwrecked brother to take heart again. The way David
responded to the death of his loved one has encouraged and helped
many to escape the sinking ship of despair, and to stand on the solid
rock of hope and victory. All of us will one day face the sorrow of
losing a loved one, and many of you have already done so. Since the
experience of death is continuous and inevitable, it is important that
we be prepared at all times to respond to it with attitudes that are
fitting for those who know the conqueror of death, and who is the Lord
of life.
The mind and the will must be prepared before hand, and so I trust
that our examination of David's attitude toward death will make a
conscious impact on each of our lives. And prepare us to be fully
Christian in the day of crisis. There are three attitudes that David
exhibits, or three footprints he has left in the sand along the shore of
the sea of tragedy. They are footprints that each of us will want to
follow when we come to that same place. David has been involved in
one sin after another that has brought him to an hour of judgment.
God has determined that the child born to Bathsheba, as David's wife,
but conceived out of wedlock, shall die. The child becomes very sick,
and David faces the death of one he love dearly. The first attitude we
see him exhibit is-
I. PERSISTENCE.
David had faith that God is able to deliver, and he was determined
to fight to the end. He was told point blank that the child would die,
but he did not give up in despair. He went to his knees in prayer. He
prayed and fasted in the hope that God would spare the child. In
verse 22 he says he had hope right to the end. As long as the child was
alive the only proper attitude he could have was that of persistent
trust and faith that God could prevent the death of the child. David
did not pray and fast in fear, but in faith. David's attitude was, where
there is life there is hope, and those who know the author of life need
never despair as long as there is life.
It is not Christian to give up in the face of any amount of negative
evidence. Henry Amiel said, "It is dangerous to abandon one's self to
the luxury of grief; it deprives one of the courage, and even the wish
for recovery." Whether it be yourself or a loved on approaching the
gate of death, you are to face it in faith believing that recovery is
possible. In other words, when the Christian dies, or a loved one, it
should be, not because he has given up hope, or has ceased to pray.
The Christian is to enter death victoriously, and not in defeat.
Therefore, our first attitude when we confronted with the possibility of
death is to be persistence in faith that goes on trusting God, and never
gives up the fight. Martin Tupper wrote,
Never give up! If adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup,
And the best counsel, in all your distresses,
Is the stout watchword of Never give up!
Many of you have heard the story of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker
whose plane was forced down in the Pacific on a war mission. He and
his men drifted in a raft for 8 days without food or water in the
scorching tropic sun. They were burned, parched, hungry, and
exhausted. They were discouraged to the point of despair, and had
given up hope. All, that is, except Eddie. He had faced death before,
and now that he faced it again he did so in faith and hope. He was
relying upon God to bring them through. He never ceased to pray
and believe that they would be rescued.
One of the men had a Bible, and he started an evening and morning
prayer meeting and Bible reading. On the 8th day it looked bad.
Some were sick from drinking sea water, and some were showing signs
of delirium. But Rickenbacker continued to pray and believe, for his
attitude was like that of David-where there is life, there is hope. Death
was staring them in the face, but it had not yet conquered. After
prayer meeting on the 8th day a seagull came out of nowhere and
landed on Rickenbacker's head. He gently reached up and caught
him. Each man had a bite of food. They ate even the small bones.
Then they used the innards for bait, and they caught a mackerel and a
speckled sea bass. They were only 6 to 8 inches, but no fisherman has
ever been happier with a catch as they were. That night a rain storm
supplied them with drinking water.
These answers to prayer so changed their attitudes that though
they had to drift for nearly 2 more weeks before being found, they all
had developed faith. They were now willing to persist, and not give
up. They were almost dead when they were found, but almost does not
count in death, and their faith made them victors. When
Rickenbacker was asked how they did it, his simple answer was-
"we prayed." David prayed too with death staring him in the face,
but his prayer was not granted. The point we are seeking to
understand is not that you will never die, or that loved ones never will,
if you persist in faith and prayer, but that the attitude of persistence is
the only attitude a believer can consistently have. Every believer in
God must face the fact of death with faith rather than fear, just as
David did. When he discovered that his prayer was to no avail, and
the child died anyway, we see his second attitude.
II. ACCEPTANCE.
The servants of David were fearful that when he found out the child
was dead he might go hysterical and do himself harm, and possibly
even take his own life. This is a common reaction to the loss of one
who is greatly loved. The loved one who is left longs to join them in
death. David surprised them, however, for he was only fasting and
weeping in prayer because he knew there was hope. When he heard
the child was dead, and hope was gone for keeping the child with him,
he left off from his prayer and fasting. He washing himself, changed
his clothes, and went to church. Then he went home to eat a hardy
meal.
Ordinarily it was after the death of a person that people mourned
and wept, but not for David. When death had come he thought it
would be out of place to be fasting and weeping then. He accepted the
fact that there is no more that can be done, and one just as well get
back into the normal pattern of life. Who can doubt that David's
attitude of acceptance is the most reasonable, and most helpful, in
going through the crisis of losing a loved one?
William James, the famous psychologist, said, "Acceptance of what
has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any
misfortune." It is not fatalism to accept the past. A fatalist would
never have had the first attitude of persistence. He would be without
hope, and would bow to the inevitable tragedy even before it was a
reality. A Christian is never a fatalist. He never gives up hope for the
future in any situation when he is trusting God as he ought. But when
the event is over, and death has come, it is not fatalism to accept it. It
is only common sense. It is irrational to do anything else. You cannot
fight what is done, and you cannot prevent the past.
Those who go on in grief, and carry the burden of the past for too
long are not being sensible. Like David, we must recognize that what
is done is to be accepted, and then get on with the gift of life that God
has given and not taken yet. Even a wise pagan can see the folly of
excessive grief. Xenophon, the Greek, put it as well as any when he
said, "Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to
the living, and the dead know it not." When a loss is certain, and it
cannot be regained, why add to the loss by losing more of life than is
necessary. David's attitude and actions are to characterize believers.
They must accept the past, and get busy on the future.
Dr. James Gordon Gilkey, pastor of the South Congregational
Church in Springfield, Mass., has stated this truth in such a clear way.
He wrote, "Misfortune cannot be conquered by furious and
continuous resentment. It can be conquered only by quiet
acquiescence. We win victory over bereavement only when we face
our loss, accept our loss, and then make our way through and beyond
our loss. You ask how we make our way through it and beyond it?
We do so by deliberately reentering the world of daily activity-the
busy world of problems, duties, friendships, opportunities, and
satisfactions. And immolated, resentful, self-pitying life is a doomed
life. Only the life which deliberately picks up and starts again is
victorious."
Alfred Tennyson said, "I must lose myself in action lest I wither in
despair." The Word of God, and the best of men's wisdom agree that
David's attitude of persistence before death, and acceptance after
death are high and worthy attitudes befitting a child of God. A
woman who lost her daughter in an accident left the hospital and
drove blindly away from the city. Late that night she came to a motel
and got a room. She paced the floor in agony of spirit. On the desk
was a Gideon Bible. Something compelled her to open it, and she
began reading the Psalms. It got late, but she couldn't stop, and so on
into the night she read until she came to the last verse which said, "Let
everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."
Later she gave her testimony and said, "That reading of the Psalms
did something very wonderful to me. All of life was there; joy and
sorrow, happiness and heartbreak. I found my answers deep and
satisfying. My heart was comforted. When I started reading I wanted
to die; when I finished, I wanted to live. The Scripture is like a
massive dose of antibiotic for the wounded heart and mind. The faster
we come to acceptance, the sooner we can enter again into a life that
would please the one we lost. Norman Vincent Peale went so far as to
say, "I really believe myself that when the person left behind grieves
excessively it may even trouble and disturb the dear one who has
passed into the spiritual life." David becomes our example of swift
acceptance. David has one other attitude which he expresses in verse
23, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." We have here the
attitude of-
III. ASSURANCE.
David accepted the past, but that did not mean he accepted it as
final. Death had won the battle, and David accepts the defeat, but he
also has the assurance that when the war is over, he will be reunited
with his child. Death is not the end says David. His child is only a
prisoner of war, and is only taken from him temporarily. William
Penn wrote, "The truest end of life is to know that life never
ends...death is no more than a turning of us over from time to
eternity." David recognized that his child just changed his sphere of
his existence.
So great is the desire of the human heart to believe in life beyond
death that even Robert Ingersall, the famous American agnostic, once
stood at the grave of a friend's child and said, "If somewhere else
there is another dawn; if somewhere else your child lives again, surely
its life will be as good as ours. So be comforted. Take up your daily
lives; help each other, and hope that someday you will know and love
again the child you loved here."
God has given us visual aids in His creation to help us gain
assurance that death does not have the final word. Cecil B. DeMille,
the famous motion picture producer, use to like to get off by himself to
think out a problem. On one such occasion he went out in a lake in a
canoe. He just drifted until he came to rest in a place where the water
was only inches deep. Looking down he saw at the bottom was
covered with water beetles. As he watched, one of them come to the
surface, and slowly crawled up the side of the canoe. When it reached
the ridge it died.
DeMille went back to thinking of his problem. Sometime later he
looked at the beetle again. In the hot sun the shell had become dry
and brittle. As he watched, the shell split open, and from it there
slowly emerged a dragonfly, which finally took to the air, and flew
away with beautiful colors flashing in the sunlight. It flew over the
water several times, but the water beetles below could not
comprehend its new existence. They lived in their limited sphere while
this winged cousin had gained the freedom of soaring between earth
and sky. Later when DeMille shared this experience he concluded
with a very penetrating question. "Would the Great Creator of the
universe do that for a water beetle, and not for a human being?" He
didn't think so, and neither should we.
David did not need to speak with so many ifs. He used none, in
fact, but declares in an attitude of perfect assurance that he will be
with his child beyond the grave. Death only shifted the object of his
faith. Before death he had faith that the child would not die. After
death he had faith that he would be with him in eternity. David may
not have been conscious of it, but his 3 attitudes in the facing of death
of a child have been of great value to millions who have followed in his
footsteps in the sands of time. Leigh Hunt said, "Whenever evil
befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how can
we turn it into good? So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root,
to raise perhaps many flowers."
David's misfortune, because of his God honoring response, has
resulted in much comfort in getting the flowers of faith to bloom in the
hearts of the bereaved. We have a Gospel of salvation in Christ that
far surpasses anything David had. God forbid that as believers in the
Christ who conquered death, that we fail to exhibit the attitudes of
persistence, acceptance, and assurance in the experience of death.
