Category: Articles

Walking With God in Death

by Rick Shrader

We end our series about walking with God where it should end, considering the time of our death.  I don’t know why the topic should seem morbid to us, all of us will die and the only thing that can change that is the rapture of the church at the end of the age.  That is my first hope but the last thing I plan for.  We all have to live our lives like Paul, “That I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:24).

It’s the fall of the year and God’s beauty and handiwork are on display all around.  Just as the year will cycle through its four seasons as God has commanded, so our life will cycle through its seasons.  I like that our house faces West so that in the morning I can sit on the back porch and look east at the sunrise with all of its splendor.  Spring and Summer offer good weather and sitting out is easy and comfortable.  But from my vantage the leaves on the trees east of our back yard block much of the view “when the morning guilds the sky.”  Now the leaves are falling and winter is coming quickly.  It is colder and more uncomfortable to sit outside yet soon the Eastern sky will be unblocked and the sunrise more glorious because the leaves are fallen.  I have found the seasons of life to be the same.  In my youth there were many necessary cares that blocked the view of the skies, but now in the Fall and coming Winter of my life I am anticipating and already enjoying the clearer view.

I have found that most older believers don’t fret or regret the younger years nor do they begrudge the youth theirs.  They know that “though the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).  Most older believers enter these years, the most physically challenging of their lives, with courage, joy, humor, and strength.  For most of us, our mentors are gone on ahead and the hand that used to pull us forward is not there.  We are still pulling on the hands behind us, but our eyes are ahead of us and our growing joy awaits us.

I think I speak for many when I say that I want to walk with God to the very finish line, to “press toward the mark” (Phil. 3:14) and hear a glad “well done.”  In my wonderful years at Bethel Baptist Church in Ft. Collins, CO, Twila had been the only secretary of the church since its beginning in 1958.  She had that job for forty years until she retired.  But sadly, the same year she retired she was found with cancer that quickly took her life.  I’ll always remember when she looked at me from her bed and said, “I want to do this well.”  I can confidently say that most senior saints desire to do the same.

It has been my privilege to perform well over a hundred funerals throughout my ministry.  I’m sure that in heaven we’ll both laugh and rejoice at the funerals we attended and maybe even at our own.  But more than anything else, and much should be said at a loved one’s passing, funerals teach us the reality of life both now and forever.  “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Ecc. 7:4).  I have seen more lost people face the reality of death and judgment at funerals than anywhere I have preached the gospel.  It is a great testimony when positive words about faith and heaven can be given at the end of one’s Christian life.

Of course, no one can speak of death first hand but having been around it a lot, here are a few ways in which I have witnessed that we can walk with God in the closing years of our lives.

Know the inevitability of death

We know that God has said it is appointed unto us “to die” (Heb. 9:27).  This was promised to Adam and Eve when they sinned and it was passed on (as was their sin) to all of their posterity.  Every cemetery bears witness to that fact.  Psalm 90 is the only psalm with Moses’ name on it and it is a psalm about death.  He saw a lot of it in the last forty years of his life.  “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off and we fly away.”  But Moses didn’t end there.  He also said, “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psa. 90:10, 12).  Death is the last debt we owe to sin and we must pay it, but let us do it with Christian strength and conviction.

C.S. Lewis wrote a lot during the war years and encouraged his fellow Brits to stay positive.  He wrote, “But there is no question of death or life for any of us, only a question of this death or of that—of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later.  What does war do to death?  It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be changed.”¹   There are times when death seems more frequent but it is not.  “There is a democracy about death.  It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.”²

It is a sad thing to perform a funeral for a lost person.  There is no hope nor comfort of the Spirit.  Death is accepted by all but with fear and not with joy.  How different for the believer and family!  “We sorrow not even as others which have no hope” (1 Thes. 4:13).

Overcome the fear of death

Inevitability ought not to produce fear.  God has made provision for His saints.  The resurrected Jesus said,  “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18).  Jesus became a man and died for us, “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14-15).

Augustine said, “For sooner or later every man must die, and we groan, and pray, and travail in pain, and cry to God, that we may die a little later.  How much more ought we to cry to him that we may come to that place where we shall never die.”³  In our beloved current church, Charlie was a great Christian man who died of cancer.  On his deathbed while Mary his wife sat beside him, he asked, “Honey, how does a man die?”  She said, “Well, I guess you just ask God to take you.”  Charlie folded his hands over his chest, said a silent prayer, and went to sleep.  Charlie woke up but not on this side of glory but the other.  How confident the believer can be at the time of death.  As Watts wrote, “When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, I’ll bit farewell to every fear and wipe my weeping eyes.”

Know God walks the valley with you

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me” (Psalm 23:4).  Notice the truths in this verse.  “Though.”  It is not an if or a maybe but a certainty.  “I walk.”  We can’t run or stop but must walk at the normal speed.  God will determine the end, not us.  “Through.”  It is a valley with an open end, not a boxed canyon.  “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psa. 30:5).  “The valley.”  It is narrow and confining and our perspective is small.  It is not a joy to be in the valley but it is a valley with a mountain on both sides.  “Of the shadow.”  A shadow is not the real thing.  The mountain that casts the shadow is heaven itself.  “Of death.”  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).  “I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”  When God walks with you through this valley, fear and doubt melt away.

Philip Doddridge wrote, “I acknowledge, O Lord, the justice of that sentence by which I am expiring; and own thy wisdom and goodness in appointing my journey through this gloomy vale which is now before me.  Help me to turn it into the happy occasion of honoring thee, and adorning my profession!  And I will bless the pangs by which thou art glorified, and this mortal and sinful part of my nature dissolved. . . let me close the scene nobly.”⁴

Stay positive and productive

Saying with Paul that we will press toward the mark at the end of our lives is easier said than done.  If we are not diligent in the later years we will become what we don’t want to be, negative, sour, and critical.  It’s not the gray hair or the aging body that makes a senior unattractive, it is the letting down of the guard when we need it most.

I ran some track when I was in high school.  I was never very good but for some reason the coach made me run the hardest race of all—the quarter mile.  That is one full circle around the track.  I say the hardest because you basically have to run full speed for about as long as you can before you collapse.  You start out well, running with energy and strength, but when you come around that last turn and head for the finish line, as they say, the old bear climbs on your back.  You can see the finish but you don’t think you can make it there.  Somehow you have to keep pushing until you cross the line.  And you would like to be the first one!

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).  The writer of Hebrews also told us that Jesus is the Author and the Finisher of our faith (12:2).  He is the starting line and the finishing line.  In the quarter mile, the starting line is also the finishing line.  If we keep our eyes on Him as we come around the last turn, we’ll have the strength to make it all the way to the right pace.  Spurgeon said, “O Lord, let them not die without hope, and may thy believing people learn to pass away without even tasting the bitterness of death.  May they enter into rest, each one walking in his own uprightness.”⁵

Face physical challenges well

As we come closer to the end of our days we naturally have more and more physical challenges.  The outward man is perishing though the inward man is being renewed day by day.  That is, it’s not that the soul leaves the body as much as the body deserts the soul!  The soul cannot be “absent from the body” (2 Cor. 5:8) until the body “returns to dust” (Ecc. 12:7) and the soul can “fly away” (Psa. 90:10).  This is why the soul is “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8) but cannot go until the body finally quits.

And the body is dying!  “It is sown in corruption . . . In dishonor . . . It is sown a natural body” (1 Cor. 15:42-44).  The seed has to be put into the ground and die for resurrection to take place.  This is not necessarily bad.  William Law wrote, “The greatness of those things which follow death makes all that goes before it sink into nothing.”⁶

I remember reading about Vance Havner speaking to college students when he was in his later years.  After he described the busy schedule that he was still keeping, a student said, “If I did all of that I would die,” to which Havner replied, “who said you can’t die?”  Paul said, why do you weep and break my heart, “for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13.  That is the Christian spirit when facing the challenges of the difficult years.

Leave a legacy after death

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:13).  As I grow older and look back over my life and then forward to the time I have left, I realize that most of what I will do in the future depends on what I have done in the past.  First my children and grandchildren, then all of those whom I have had the privilege of pastoring, these all will spread out the influence I will have in this world after I am gone.  I trust that more will be done by these than I have ever done in my short life.

This makes me adjust my priority as I get closer to finishing my course.  They will do the work, not I.  They will multiply the work and extend it far beyond the time I have.  Their work will be theirs but it will also be mine, just as my work is mine but also my predecessors.  One plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.  Paul put it this way, “Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid” (1 Tim. 5:25).  An old woodsman’s saying is, a tree is best measured when it is cut down.

Doddridge also said, “Well then, let me beseech you to learn how you should live, by reflecting how you would die, and what course you would wish to look back upon, when you are just quitting this world, and entering upon another.”⁷  Unfortunately I cannot go back and change something that was not the best.  I can only reconcile it with God and explain it to those I love.  Someone asks, “will your children live out what you have taught them?”  I can only answer by seeing how they are raising their own children.  “As arrows in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psa. 127:4-5).  And as John wrote, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth” (3 John 4).

Look forward to life after death

The most encouraging thing I have read lately is old Richard Baxter’s, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.  It is a treasure of encouragement for the believer to look forward, not backward, at the end of his or her life.  He wrote, “I am going to the place that I daily conversed in; to the place from whence I tasted such frequent delights; to that God whom I have met in my meditations so often.  My heart hath been in heaven before now, and hath often tasted its reviving sweetness; and if my eyes were so enlightened and my spirits so refreshed when I had but a taste, what will it be when I shall feed on it freely.”⁸

How often we have preached on and studied about heaven?  How often have we, in our prophetic studies, contemplated the millennial joys that we will receive for a thousand years on this earth?  How often have we studied Revelation 21 and 22 and wondered about the New Jerusalem our eternal home?  And how often have we studied both the earthly life and the heavenly life of our Lord Jesus Christ and have testified of our longing to see Him?  Well, those times are coming, and soon!  Why should we try so hard to prevent it?  We should rather rejoice that our salvation is nearer than when we believed.

Paul said it best in the last chapter of his last epistle while waiting for martyrdom.  “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).  And Peter said that we have been born again “unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  Wherein ye greatly rejoice.” (1 Pet. 1:4-5)

And so . . .

We can certainly walk with God in time of death.  In fact, this is the time of our greatest faith and our greatest witness.  I have heard many saints of God on their deathbed say, “I am so ready to go.”  I have stood over many caskets and heard people say, “He is better off now.  The pain and suffering is over, he is happier than we are.”  Well, do we really believe those things?  I know we do and I encourage all of us to practice it ourselves.

I would be amiss if I did not end this article, and also this series, with an encouragement to know Christ.  Perhaps you have read this looking for hope at the end of your life.  Look to Jesus, the One Who loved you and gave Himself for you.  He will save you from your sins and give you eternal life in heaven.  Ask Him to be your Savior today.  Then you will say with Simeon when he saw the baby Jesus, “Now let they servant depart in peace . . . For my eyes have seen thy Salvation” (Lk. 2:29-30).

Notes:

1. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: MacMillan, 1980) 31.
2. John Donne, quoted in Just As I Am (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1997) 464.
3. Augustine, “Discourse on the Lord’s Prayer,” Orations (New York: Collier, 1902) 1189.
4. Philip Doddridge, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (U. of MI. reprint, nd)  319.
5. C.H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Prayers (UK: Christian Focus, 2002) 114.
6. William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (Phil: Westminster Press, 1948) 28.
7. Doddridge, 207.
8. Richard Baxter, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest (Boston: American Tract Soc., nd) 318.

Walking With God in Judgment

by Rick Shrader

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 11:13-14).

The words judge and judgment and their cognates appear well over five hundred times in any current Bible translation.  There is no doubt that judgment is a central part of God’s dealings with mankind in their current sinful situation.  The writer of Hebrews proclaimed that God has appointed that human beings will die (in itself a judgment) but that after that they will be judged (Heb. 9:27).  The Psalmist wrote, “The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.  Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins” (Psa. 7:8-9).

The believer should welcome God’s judgment.  First, as I will explain shortly, because our sin has been judged in Christ’s substitutionary atonement which has been applied to all who believe.  “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).  But also because, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Heb. 12:6).  God’s judgment and correction of us as believers is designed to make us better and to conform us to the image of His Son.  This is nothing less than a progressive sanctification applied to the believer in this life by the Lord.  Wayne Grudem begins that section of his theology with this description,

But now we come to a part of the application of redemption that is a progressive work that continues throughout our earthly lives.  It is also a work in which God and man cooperate, each playing distinct roles.  This part of the application of redemption is called sanctification: Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more  and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.¹

This progressive work which God continues throughout our lives is a process of judgment and correction.  God sees my sins and faults and His righteous omniscience immediately judges them to be wrong and enacts a course of correction.  As a believer possessing the Holy Spirit, I realize this and yield to the Spirit’s leading, and do so quickly to avoid needed chastisement.  By this process I am made better and, at least in some very small way, made more like Christ and am more prepared for life in His presence.

Theologians often make a distinction in the types of judgment.  Rolland McCune says,  “There are fundamentally two kinds of divine judgment in Scripture: temporal and final.  Temporal judgments serve a present purpose . . . Final judgments serve an eternal purpose.”²

Temporal Judgment

Temporal judgments are those which God brings upon people, nations, and even the world within the present time and space.  1) This judgment is brought upon individuals such as when God judged Cain for his murder of Abel or when He judged Pharaoh for his refusal to let Israel leave Egypt.   Paul wrote, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Gal. 6:7-8).

2) This judgment is brought upon nations throughout history.  This is especially true of those nations that persecuted and harassed Israel, “for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of God’s eye” (Zech. 2:8).  Assyria and Babylon especially came under this judgment from God.  Zechariah also prophesied (Zech. 1:18-21), in the vision of the four horns and the four carpenters, that God used one nation as a horn upon another and then used that same nation as a carpenter upon another nation.  Job said, “He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again” (Job 12:23).  Nations such as America are not exempt from God’s judgment for sins of atheism, fornication, gender perversion, and murder of millions of defenseless unborn children.  3) Temporal judgment is also brought upon the world.  The great catastrophes of history are testimony to this:  the fall, the Noahic flood, the tower of Babel, the destruction of Jerusalem.  In the end of this age God will judge the world in one of the greatest of all temporal judgments, the great tribulation period.

The greatest temporal judgment to ever take place, however, was on the cross of Calvary.  There judgment was made for our sins and also to bring judgment on our accuser.  Herman Hoyt put it this way,

The cross involved a threefold judgment:  1) of sin, by imputation to Christ (Rom 8:3); 2) of believers, by identification with Christ (2 Cor 5:14, Gal 2:20); and 3) of the world and its prince by implication (Jn 12:31-33).”  Therefore sin is taken away, the world and Satan are completely doomed, and the believer is no longer under condemnation.  “The cross thus stands as the supreme exhibition and harbinger of all final judgment, for it reveals the righteous judgment of God (Rom 3:25) and it separates men into two classes (Jn 3:14-18).³

Temporal judgments also come into a Christian’s life for various reasons.  1) For sins of the flesh.  Paul said, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27, NKJV).  To “bring it into subjection” (from doulagōgeō) means to lead about into slavery.  Our body has many members that, if wrongly used, can bring God’s judgment on us in our lives.  2) For sins of motivation.  To lust after a woman is the same as adultery (Matt. 5:32); to covet another’s possessions is the same as idolatry (Eph. 5:5); and to hate a brother is the same as murder (1 John 3:15).  Paul admonished the Corinthians, “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31).  3) For disobedience to the Word of God.  The Bible is God’s direct revelation to us of His will.  “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).  4) For sins against our brethren.  “Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door” (Jas. 5:9).  5) For sins against whole churches.  The seven churches in Revelation had to understand that they would be under the immediate judgment of God if they did not amend their ways.  To the church at Ephesus He said,  “Remember therefore from whence thou are fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (Rev. 2:5).

How does God proceed in His temporal judgment upon believers?  First, the Holy Spirit Who indwells us uses the Word of God to bear His message upon our hearts.  Second, our conscience, if trained correctly by God’s Word, condemns us when we are out of God’s will.  Third, God uses authorities in our lives to confront and correct us.  This may be parents, teachers and coaches, civil authorities, or even friends and other acquaintances.  Fourth, God uses providences of His own making to stop us, inform us, and to change our direction.

Final Judgment

Final judgment is the easiest for us to understand because we are  often taught that judgment is coming after this life.  1) God will judge Satan and angels.  “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).  2) God will judge all the lost at the White Throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-15).  “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (vs. 15).  “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psa. 9:17).

3) There is also a final judgment for believers, i.e., a judgment beyond the temporal time of our lives, one that takes place after our rapture or resurrection.  “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10).  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).  The participants of this judgment include all believers from the age of grace, or the whole church of Jesus Christ.  The time and place of this judgment is immediately after the rapture  when the church is in heaven.  The crowns that believers receive at this judgment are already being cast before the throne in Rev. 4:10, at the very beginning of the tribulation period.  This is not a judgment for sin, for that has been forever judged on the cross, but rather it is a judgment of our works as Christians.  Ryrie explains,

The nature of the believer’s works will be examined in this judgment to distinguish worthy works from worthless ones.  These works are the deeds done by the believer during his Christian life.  All will be reviewed and examined.  Some will pass the test because they were good; others will fail because they were worthless.  Both good and bad motives will be exposed; then every believer will receive his due praise from God.  What grace!⁴

The Bema Seat is not merely for the sake of passing out crowns and robes and then turning them back in.  They represent reward beyond that specific time.  McCune says,

The crowns of believers may be literal, but they may also signify something far greater.  It is virtually inconceivable that the reward for a life of sacrificial service and faithful obedience to God will be a few pounds of metal.  The crowns represent varying degrees of blessedness or position in God’s kingdom.⁵

Concerning our positions in the kingdom, McCune also says, “In the parable of the minas/pounds (Luke 19:12-27), while not speaking directly of the judgment seat of Christ, it, nevertheless, implies that heavenly rewards are framed in terms of responsibilities or of capacities to rule cities in the kingdom of God.”⁶  The final judgment for believers, therefore, is a wonderful event in which we will be finally prepared for our life in the kingdom and eternity.  “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Rev. 19:7).

Self Judgment

Again, Paul told the church at Corinth, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31).  This area that I call self judgment is properly placed within temporal judgments, but I have kept it until last because it becomes our most immediate responsibility.  The list could be expanded to include many areas of our Christian lives, but I give seven for our present consideration.

1) Judgment on our mental life.  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-6).  The thoughts of our mind control the actions of our lives.  If we don’t think right we won’t do right.  In order to serve God we must constantly judge our own thinking and offer our thoughts as captives to Him.

2) Judgment on our physical life.  “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Rom. 6:13).  The Bible is full of commands concerning the believer’s actions.  The body that we live in is our space, and we have no other.  My stewardship centers on this space and what I do with it.  After Paul had admonished the Roman believers to “know” and “reckon,” he then admonishes them to “yield” and not to “yield” themselves to the good and the bad influences in life.  This is what Grudem (in the earlier quote) called a work in which God and man cooperate.  We must stand in judgment on our own physical lives.

3) Judgment on our church life.  “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)  And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Heb. 10:23-25).  The purpose for life in the local church is to exhort and be exhorted by brothers and sisters in Christ while we all assemble together and learn God’s Word.  We cannot do this if we don’t assemble, nor if we simply entertain ourselves, nor if we become distracted by busyness in extra-curricular activities.  This is an area where churches can be very anemic but one in which we must push ourselves to do in a Biblical way.

4) Judgment on our devotional life.  We are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly (Co. 3:16), to enter into our closet and pray (Matt. 6:6), to “meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all” (1 Tim. 4:15).  Though it is a day of easy access to Bible texts, devotional ideas, and daily meditational thoughts, we seem to actually spend less time in devotions.  It is true that many people have to find ways to save time and accomplish things on the go, but we must remember that there is no more important thing than time with God.  Morning, noon, or night affords us some time when we can meet with our Lord.

5) Judgment on our evangelistic life.  “And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 22-23).  This is an area where we have to judge ourselves constantly.  It is, admittedly, one of the most difficult things we do.  It is not necessarily our nature to interject ourselves into others’ business.  Yet we must remember that the gospel IS our business, and they are part of that business!  It is not easy to persuade someone in the things of God, especially in a time or place that is growing hostile to the gospel.  Compassion and fear are good Biblical motivators that we must use.

6) Judgment on our family life.  “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.  Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:18-21).  The family is the foundation for civilization and culture.  As believers we know what the family should look like and how the family should conduct itself.  We must not let the unsaved culture dictate what a Christian family is.  A Christian family is a marriage between a man and a woman who together bear and raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.  This Biblical ideal will become more and more difficult as time goes on but we must constantly evaluate how we are doing.

7) Judgment on our life’s life.  I mean by this, are we giving our very lives to the Lord as we ought?  Moses concluded his only Psalm with this plea, “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it” (Psa. 90:17).  No one can really evaluate your life except you and God.  You know whether you have followed His will and whether you are walking in His commandments.  “The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him” (Prov. 20:7).

And so . . .

Remember the words of old Richard Baxter (1615-1691) who encouraged his readers to use soliloquy.

By soliloquy, or a pleading the case with thyself, thou must in thy meditation quicken thy own heart.  Enter into a serious debate with it.  Plead with it in the most moving and effecting language, and urge it with the most powerful and weighty arguments.  It is what holy men of God have practiced in all ages.  Thus David, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul; and why art thou disquieted within me? . . . It is a preaching to one’s self; for as every good master or father of a family is a good preacher to his own family, so every good Christian is a good preacher to his own soul.⁷

Notes:

1. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 746.
2. Rolland McCune, Systematic Theology, vol. III (Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010) 409.
3. Herman Hoyt, The End Times (Chicago: Moody Books, 1978) 217.
4. Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1987) 512.
5. McCune, 415.
6. p. 414.
7. Richard Baxter, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest (Boston: American Tract Society, nd.) 351.