A number of years ago I was driving to school in our little Saturn vehicle we used to own and it was one of those cold cloudy rainy days. The roads were wet and the fog was pretty thick that morning. I was on the road that goes from Myrick to Ellisville and in my hand I help a cup of coffee. Now I don’t know if I just wasn’t paying attention enough or if I took my eyes off the road or what. But when I came to a curve I simply overlooked it. As I was going off the road I overcorrected which took me into the oncoming lane. As all this was going on, in my right hand I still held my cup of coffee. I wasn’t about to let that go! So I overcorrected again, and all of a sudden the back end of the car got loose and started to spin. I spun about three times before I landed in a ditch…still holding my cup of coffee.
A man behind me stopped to see if I was okay and offered me a ride to a phone. A toe truck came to get me out, and when he saw where my car was sitting, he pointed to a nearby driveway just 10 ft away from where I first went off the road into the ditch. He explained how just a few weeks prior, a young girl had went off the road in the same way, in the same place just when she went off the road she hit that driveway and her car flipped a number of times and she was killed.
After a time of reflection on my part I realized two things. First, my priorities were all messed up if I was willing to sacrifice a $12,000 car to save an 89cent cup of coffee and Second, I was only 10 ft away from death. It was a sobering experience to say the least.
When was it that you first realized that death was a reality you must face. Perhaps it was a national tragedy like we saw last weekend with the Space Shuttle Columbia. Maybe it was the death of a close friend or relative. Perhaps it was your own near death experience, whatever the means you came to the realization that you would not leave this world alive. There is a new hit movie out called Final Destination 2, and the commercial for the movie says, “Death is coming”. And Death is coming whether we like it or not.
We can do all we can to avoid it, we can prolong our life with better living, medicine, and technology…but Death is an enemy that we all must face one day. I saw an amazing statistic that said that 1 out of every 1 persons will die. I’m thinking my chances are pretty good. David once said, “there is only one step between me and death.” We all will die…death is no respecter of persons. It tales the powerful and the meek, the actor and the banker, the rich and the poor, both young and old alike.
Death often comes unexpectedly and to those we lease expect. A Newspaper report from this past summer read as follows: On Saturday, June 22, 2002, the scheduled game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field had to be cancelled because of an eerie discovery that was found that morning. The Card’s ace pitcher, Darryl Kile, age 33, was found dead in a Chicago hotel room. Kile had been a major league pitching sensation for 12 years and had appeared in three All-Star games. He was 6-foot 5-inch and seemed in excellent health but when the medical examiners conducted an autopsy later that day, they discovered that Kile had died from a massive heart attack. His main coronary artery was 90 percent blocked. A 33 year old professional baseball player in what seemed like perfect health dropped dead unexpectedly. No one is immune.
And death is such a powerful force that it holds many in the grip of fear. Hebrews 2:15 says, “and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Many are so bound by their fear of death that they won’t even discuss it. They refuse to make a will, to buy a burial plot, or even purchase life insurance all for their fear of death. Woody Allen once said that he wasn’t afraid of dying, he just didn’t want to be there when it happened.
Many of us can understand that. We fear not only death but the events leading up to it. If you’ve ever sat by a bed side of a person struggling to hang on it seems so painful. Death is a mighty for, and that is what makes the resurrection of Jesus Christ the ultimate victory! A victory is meaningless if it is against an opponent who is weak. When Kentucky beat South Carolina last week, not much was said. Yet when they defeated Florida the number one team in the nation the crowd was in a state of euphoria, why? Because it was against a formidable foe. And by His death and Resurrection, Jesus defeated death once and for all. Jesus says, “Because I live, you also shall live.”
Death is still powerful make no mistake, but for those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ and His resurrection death has lost it’s sting. Jesus bore the brunt of the attack for us. Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, told of the occasion when his first wife had died. He, with his children, had been to the funeral service for her. As he was driving his motherless children home, they were naturally overcome with grief at the parting. Dr. Barnhouse said that he was trying to think of some word of comfort that he could give them. Just then a huge moving van passed by them. As it passed, the shadow of the truck swept over the car. And as the truck pulled on in front of them, an inspiration came to Dr. Barnhouse. He said, "Children, would you rather be run over by a truck, or by its shadow?" The children said, "Well, of course, Dad, we’d much rather be run over by the shadow! That can’t hurt us at all." Dr. Barnhouse said, "Did you know that two thousand years ago the truck of death ran over our Lord Jesus ... in order that only its shadow might run over us?" For those who have placed their faith in Christ, death has no sting. Psalm 23:4 reads, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.”
As we continue in this series of facing our fears, we come to the universal fear of death. The apostle Paul was one who was familiar with death. He had been persecuted and on the verge of death many times in his ministry, and in our text today He reveals some things about life and death that I believe will help us overcome our fear of dying.
The first thing I want you to see here is that this life here in our world is a difficult existence. The longer a Christian lives in our present world, the less attraction this world has. Twice in this passage Paul compared our lives to a tent. 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”
Now I’ve never been big on camping out. My idea of roughing it is a hotel that doesn‘t have a coffee pot and a continental breakfast. But I know of two words that describe living in a tent. One is the word insecure. A tent is not a very good fortress. You can’t bolt the door against intruders. The canvas doesn’t seem like good protection against wild animals. If you’ve ever spent a night in the tent when the wind is blowing real hard you know that they can collapse easy. And since Paul was a tent maker he knew what he was speaking about when he compared this life to a tent. A tent is insecure.
And our life like the tent is vulnerable. This life is uncertain. It can be destroyed in a second. We try to develop security through insurance and the accumulation of goods and support groups and people, but no matter how much we have of this world‘s goods, we’re still living in a tent that can be blown over easily. We teach our children to pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep…if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” That’s how vulnerable we are.
Now the 2nd word to describe a tent is the word uncomfortable. When you go camping and you lay down for the night with a sleeping bag on the ground inside a tent and it’s humid, and the mosquitoes are biting , the ground gets harder the longer that you lay there . And as you lie their in darkness, you start to think about your bed, the air conditioning, the indoor plumbing. And the longer you toss and turn in that tent, the more uncomfortable you begin to feel. After 4 or 5 days, everything in the tent smells likes socks.
Well, Spiritually speaking the longer we serve the Lord, the sweeter He grows. But physically speaking, the longer we’re in this world the more uncomfortable we become. Vs 4 of our text says, “For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened,” Katherine Hepburn once said, “When you’re my age it’s as if you’re a car. First a tire blows out and you get it fixed and then a headlight goes and you get that fixed. Then one day you bring the car into the shop and the mechanic says, “Sorry, Miss, they don’t have this make any more.” So we long for the day when we can cast aside this tent and put on our new heavenly body that is free from all the pains of this world.
But even with this longing, death can still be a fearful event. An evangelist asked all who wanted to go to heaven to raise their hands. Everyone in the audience did so, except one elderly man sitting near the front of the auditorium. The preacher pointed his finger at him and said, ‘Sir, do you mean to tell us that you don’t want to go to heaven?’ ‘Sure I want to go, but the way you put the question, I figured you were getting up a busload for tonight!’ Even though we long to be rid of this body, we just want to prolong it as long as we can. That’s why I believe so many of us want to go to Heaven, but just not right now.
But information is always a good antidote for fear. If you’re going to have major heart surgery, it helps when the doctor draws a diagram of a bypass so you know exactly what’s going to happen. Somehow that information reassures you and it’s helpful to read Gods’ Word and understand what is going to transpire when you die.
First there is the departure of the spirit from the body. This tent , this body is just the outer casing. You can cut off my head, my arms, my legs but I’d still be Barry Robinson. You can take out my appendix, even give me a heart from another person, and I’m still Barry Robinson. This body doesn’t define who I am. One day this tent will be destroyed, and my spirit will depart from my body. That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” When we die that does not end all. We are like a glove. When a hand is removed from the glove the form still remains but that which animated it, that which gave the glove life has been removed.
After the departure of the spirit, we are ushered immediately into the presence of God. 2 Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” When Christians die they go to be immediately with the Lord We get this from a number of passages. Jesus told the thief on the cross that today he would be with Him in paradise. When Stephan was stoned to death he saw the Lord and said, Lord receive my spirit. The Lord was with Stephan as he was dying.
What a comfort it is to realize that when we experience death we will not do so alone. When I was younger, I used to hate to be asked to go into my grandparents basement because it was dark and musty. I knew that at any moment the boogie man was going to jump out and eat me. But whenever my Dad would journey down those stairs with me, it wasn’t the least bit scary because I had my Dad right there with me. John Wesley, just before he died in his 88th year, sat up, looked at his loved ones weeping at his bedside, and said, “Best of all, God is with us.” And what a blessing it is to know that when we die, our Father will be there with us.
Now this ushering in of our spirit to be in the presence of God will be followed with a new glorified body. We will be changed. A Country farmer and his boy ventured to the big city for the first time. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and back together again. The boy asked his father, "What is this father?" The father (never having seen an elevator) responded, "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don’t know what it is."
While the boy and his father were watching wide-eyed, an old lady limping slightly with a cane slowly walks up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady walks between them and into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched, small circles of light with numbers above the wall light up. They continued to watch the circles light up in the reverse direction. The walls opened up again and a beautiful 24-year-old woman stepped out. The father said to his son, "Boy, Go get your Mama.”
We are not going to spend eternity as floating spirits, God is going to clothe us with new clothes. Vs 3 says we will not be found naked. God is going to clothe us with new bodies, glorified bodies, but tat will not happen until Jesus Christ returns and our bodies are resurrected. Just as Jesus received a resurrected body so shall we. Remember how for 3 days His body laid in the tomb. His spirit wasn’t there, we are told it went to Hell to preach to those who never heard, but on the third day He rose from the dead. His spirit was reunited with His body and He was given a new glorified body. When we die, our spirits go immediately to be with God. We’re alert, we retain our personalities, and we’ll be joyful, but our eternal existence is not complete until the resurrection of our bodies. On that day our bodies shall be reunited with our souls.
So what’s it like to die, I think one of the best descriptions of death in scripture is that of “falling asleep”. When Steven was stoned by the angry mob, it says that he fell asleep. When Lazarus died, Jesus said that he was asleep. Paul told the Thessalonians church, “Brothers, I don’t want you to be ignorant of those who have fallen asleep. A little girl asked her father what it was like to die and he said, “Remember what it is like when you fall asleep in the car and while you’re still asleep Daddy will pick you up and carry you to your bed…then in the morning when you wake up, you’re in your room. When you die it’s like that, you fall asleep and God carries you and then you wake up in your home in Heaven.” Death is like falling asleep, God will carry us to our new home, and we will be with Him. And when the time comes, we will be resurrected with a new glorified body and for God to resurrect us will be as easy as arousing someone from sleep.
When you were born, those around you rejoiced and you cried; when you die, those around you will cry, but you rejoice, if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ.
