There are two subjects that men have tended to be shy about all
through history. These two subjects have been considered off limits as
topics of public conversation. It was taboo to speak of them openly.
The two subjects are, sex and death.
The paradox of this is, there are no two more universal topics. Life
begins with sex and ends with death, and between the two they play a
major role in life. Nobody can escape either one. If you are awake at
all you are aware that we are in the midst of a sexual revolution where
few things are openly discussed more often then sex. Death is a long
way behind in popularity, but it is nevertheless no longer an obscure
subject. Courses on death and dying are being taught in schools and
hospitals all over our country.
All of this radical change is just getting us back to what life was like
in Bible times. The Bible is neither shy nor silent on sex or death. The
sexual nature of man is dealt with frankly and openly in the
Scriptures. And so also is the finite nature of man dealt with openly,
which means that he will die.
By rough estimate I counted 750 references to death and dying in
my concordance of the Bible. If we are to live by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God, then no Christian can be honest with
God's word and ignore the subject of death. It is a major subject of
God's revelation, and not to study it is to be disobedient. Death has
many faces, and you cannot look at all of them at the same time, and
so to really take a study of death seriously, you have to deliberately
search the Word and categorize the various faces.
Psalm 116 reveals death as a enemy that has been conquered. It is
a success story of one who encountered the enemy on the battlefield of
life and came away victorious. This is a true story, and the kind of
story that we all like, for we prefer happy endings to stories of trial,
for they give us encouragement that we too can fight and win. It is
true and a valuable aspect of life, but the fact is, it is not the whole of
life. Not to be prepared for seeing death from another point of view,
such as a victorious enemy rather than a defeated enemy, is to be
unprepared to face the world as it really is.
The three friends of Daniel who were thrown into the fiery furnace
were ready for facing death defeated, or death victorious, and,
therefore, were prepared for whatever would come. This is true
realism, and true surrender to the will of God. In Daniel 3:17-18 they
state their profound convictions-"If it be so, our God whom we serve
is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and He will
deliver us out of your hand, O King. But if not, be it known to you, O
King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image
you have set up."
They were ready for deliverance or death, but either way they
would be loyal to God. All too often Christians are not ready for
unanswered prayer, and when death comes, they are disillusioned, and
their faith is shaken. One of the values of studying all the faces of
death is that it prepares you to be aware that not all stories have
happy endings in time, as is the case of Job or the Psalmist here in
Psalm 116.
Vance Havner, the great evangelist and author of many books,
prayed so earnestly for the miraculous healing of his wife Sara. He
already had a sermon prepared for the dramatic testimony they
would share with the world. But it was not to be. In spite of the best
care known to man they lost the battle. The disease so disfigured her
fair face they did not have an open casket at the funeral. Vance was in
intensely disappointed in God, but sober thinking on the matter
changed his mind. The dramatic healing would have been sensational,
but the facts of life are that such experiences are rare, and the masses
who listened to him or read his books would have said, "Most of us do
not have such miracles. Our loved ones die, our hopes fade, and we
need a word for those who walk the valley with no happy ending to the
story."
Havner, as he reflected on life and saw that most saints are not
delivered by miracles, he concluded-"I can see now that God denied
me what I sought that I might bring a message to a multitude like
myself when prayers were not answered as hoped. "This story of an
unhappy ending is a great comfort to many, for they do not feel alone
in their defeat. If we are going to apply the Biblical principle of
weeping with those who weep as well as rejoicing with those who
rejoice, then we need to share the records of defeat and unanswered
prayer as well as the success stories. Failure to do this hurts a lot of
people and is inconsistent with the Biblical pattern of balance. Some of
the Psalms do not have happy endings, but are cries of misery. This is
so both sides of reality are presented. This is not only honest, but it is
very helpful in dealing with those who suffer.
Peg Woodson was a teen girl dying of Cystic Fibrosis. She
convinced her mother to take her to a healing service for she knew it
was the only hope for her to live. It was a hard experience, for she had
such a high level of hope, but nothing happened. They returned home
in silence, and then the mother finally spoke and said, "Did it bother
you Peg that the minister acted like everybody would be healed ?"
"Well, it was when he was tellin all the stories about the people who
got healed in his other meetings that I really got my hopes up. I think
to be fair he should have told stories about some people who didn't get
healed too." Here was wisdom from a child. She saw the need to share
unhappy endings also, for they are just as real, and they need to be
known as well as the happy ones so that people do not feel left out, as if
they are the only ones not healed.
Recognizing this need, Miriam Morgan got twenty Christians to
write about their experience with death. They include some of the
best known names in the Christian world, and some unknown names.
Her book is called, Death: Jesus Made It All Different, is excellent
because of it's balance. One chapter is called, A Christian Fights
Suicide. The author has been chronically ill since childhood. She
suffers intense pain which cannot be alleviated. There is never ending
weariness, and on top of that there has never been normal family love.
Although she is an earnest Christian, she has fought the temptation of
suicide into her forties. Listen to her testimony-
"I was passed forty before I once mentioned this problem to
anybody, and then it was to my Christian physician. It seems
that even Christian ministers are horrified to think that a
fellow-believer could be tempted in such a way. I have fought
my most desolate battles alone, and I give all the glory to God
for keeping me from this grievous sin. But O, if the troubled
spirit could but pour out its anguish it another believing
soul, could but grasp the hand of fellowship and faith rather
than shrink from censorious recoil, how much easier could be
the road to victory."
Here is a case which combines both defeat and victory. The battle
goes on, but the victory does too, and so it is neither a happy nor an
unhappy ending, for the story does not end. The Psalmist in Psalm116
had a battle that ended, and a clear answer to prayer, and a
deliverance. The point I have been stressing is this: It is not the only
kind of experience that God's people have. They also have more
complex experiences, and they also endure unanswered prayer.
It is superficial to pretend there is always a happy ending in time,
but thank God it is often the case. There is nothing superficial about
the joy of the author of this Psalm. He was in the grip of death, and
verse 8 makes it clear that he shed many tears of anguish, and that his
hope was mighty low. The value of his coming so close to death was
first-
I. IT GAVE HIM A GREATER APPRECIATION OF LIFE.
He loved God with a greater intensity, and was determined to be a
greater man of prayer. His spiritual life was improved by his
encounter with death. In verse 16 he surrenders his life to be God's
servant, and over and over he declares he wants to pay his vows in the
presence of God's people. He is just so happy to be in the land of the
living that he wants his spared life to really count for the glory of God.
The value of death is in the greater quality it can add to our life
when we encounter it. You tend to take things for granted until there
loss is threatened. Life can be taken for granted until you become
aware that it can be lost, and then it becomes more precious than
ever. Scarcity confers value, and when death forces you to consider
how scarce the time of your life may be, you suddenly realize just how
precious life is, and you are motivated to use it more wisely. The
reality of death can lead you to appreciate more fully the value of life.
It is really tragic to go through life never being aware of life. The
neglect of death is a waste of life. Those who do not consider their end
do not live for values that last. That is why Moses in Psalm 90 prayed
in verse 12, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart
of wisdom." The context makes clear that he is saying, Lord help us
to be aware of death that we may make our life count. The lack of
thought about death is the cause of so much folly and waste of life.
Death has the power to make us focus on the real values of life.
Secular values dominate our culture because we are in a death
denying culture. Spiritual values become more real when people are
made to face up to the reality of death. We do not know how faithful
the Psalmist was before his encounter with death, but we can see that
after it he was determined to be more spiritual.
He Is Not Gone, is the title of a book by Pastor Bernard Brunsting.
It is a story of how he and his wife fought the battle with Leukemia in
their three year old son, Donny. They did not know yet of the nature
of his problem, but the doctor had scared them and made an appointment
for hospital tests. On Saturday he took his oldest son Al,
and a church friend of his, Bob Honig, to the Biggest Auto Show On
Earth. He shared with his friend Bob about his concern for little
Donny, and how it changed his whole outlook on life. Let me share a
paragraph of his testimony:
"The other remark I made to Bob was about the relative value
of things in life at the show we saw a Rolls Royce, a Lincoln
Continental, and other expensive autos. But at that moment
the health of one little boy was of more value to me than all
the cars in the world. How ridiculously unimportant the
externals of life become when the heart is torn into. How
trivial are the luxuries of the world when the soul is
disquieted within. Our scale of values is altered when the
larger burdens of life come."
Facing the death of his son changed his whole value system and how
he looked at life. They fought the battle with Leukemia for about a
year, and the enemy was held back by the use of three different drugs,
but death finally broke through the defenses. It is a story of five
major unanswered prayers. None of the five things they and the other
church members prayed for were answered. This book would mean so
much to parents going through the same battle. Psalm 116 would
leave them cold, for it deals with victory over death in time. People
need to see that even when there is no happy ending in time, there is
always a happy ending in eternity, for Christ has conquered death and
promised eternal life to all who trust in Him. But they need to see that
in time we do not always get a happy ending, and there are many who
do not, and they are never alone.
