We end our series about walking with God where it should end, considering the time of our death.\u00a0 I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0 That is my first hope but the last thing I plan for.\u00a0 We all have to live our lives like Paul, \u201cThat I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus\u201d (Acts 20:24).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the fall of the year and God\u2019s beauty and handiwork are on display all around.\u00a0 Just as the year will cycle through its four seasons as God has commanded, so our life will cycle through its seasons.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Spring and Summer offer good weather and sitting out is easy and comfortable.\u00a0 But from my vantage the leaves on the trees east of our back yard block much of the view \u201cwhen the morning guilds the sky.\u201d\u00a0 Now the leaves are falling and winter is coming quickly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I have found the seasons of life to be the same.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I have found that most older believers don\u2019t fret or regret the younger years nor do they begrudge the youth theirs.\u00a0 They know that \u201cthough the outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day\u201d (2 Cor. 4:16).\u00a0 Most older believers enter these years, the most physically challenging of their lives, with courage, joy, humor, and strength.\u00a0 For most of us, our mentors are gone on ahead and the hand that used to pull us forward is not there.\u00a0 We are still pulling on the hands behind us, but our eyes are ahead of us and our growing joy awaits us.<\/p>\n
I think I speak for many when I say that I want to walk with God to the very finish line, to \u201cpress toward the mark\u201d (Phil. 3:14) and hear a glad \u201cwell done.\u201d\u00a0 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.\u00a0 She had that job for forty years until she retired.\u00a0 But sadly, the same year she retired she was found with cancer that quickly took her life.\u00a0 I\u2019ll always remember when she looked at me from her bed and said, \u201cI want to do this well.\u201d\u00a0 I can confidently say that most senior saints desire to do the same.<\/p>\n
It has been my privilege to perform well over a hundred funerals throughout my ministry.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure that in heaven we\u2019ll both laugh and rejoice at the funerals we attended and maybe even at our own.\u00a0 But more than anything else, and much should be said at a loved one\u2019s passing, funerals teach us the reality of life both now and forever.\u00a0 \u201cThe heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth\u201d (Ecc. 7:4).\u00a0 I have seen more lost people face the reality of death and judgment at funerals than anywhere I have preached the gospel.\u00a0 It is a great testimony when positive words about faith and heaven can be given at the end of one\u2019s Christian life.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Know the inevitability of death<\/span><\/p>\n We know that God has said it is appointed unto us \u201cto die\u201d (Heb. 9:27).\u00a0 This was promised to Adam and Eve when they sinned and it was passed on (as was their sin) to all of their posterity.\u00a0 Every cemetery bears witness to that fact.\u00a0 Psalm 90 is the only psalm with Moses\u2019 name on it and it is a psalm about death.\u00a0 He saw a lot of it in the last forty years of his life.\u00a0 \u201cThe 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.\u201d\u00a0 But Moses didn\u2019t end there.\u00a0 He also said, \u201cSo teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom\u201d (Psa. 90:10, 12).\u00a0 Death is the last debt we owe to sin and we must pay it, but let us do it with Christian strength and conviction.<\/p>\n C.S. Lewis wrote a lot during the war years and encouraged his fellow Brits to stay positive.\u00a0 He wrote, \u201cBut there is no question of death or life for any of us, only a question of this death or of that\u2014of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later.\u00a0 What does war do to death?\u00a0 It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be changed.\u201d1<\/sup>\u00a0\u00a0 There are times when death seems more frequent but it is not.\u00a0 \u201cThere is a democracy about death.\u00a0 It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.\u201d2 <\/sup><\/p>\n It is a sad thing to perform a funeral for a lost person.\u00a0 There is no hope nor comfort of the Spirit.\u00a0 Death is accepted by all but with fear and not with joy.\u00a0 How different for the believer and family!\u00a0 \u201cWe sorrow not even as others which have no hope\u201d (1 Thes. 4:13).<\/p>\n Overcome the fear of death<\/span><\/p>\n Inevitability ought not to produce fear.\u00a0 God has made provision for His saints.\u00a0 The resurrected Jesus said,\u00a0 \u201cI am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death\u201d (Rev. 1:18).\u00a0 Jesus became a man and died for us, \u201cthat 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\u201d (Heb. 2:14-15).<\/p>\n Augustine said, \u201cFor 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.\u00a0 How much more ought we to cry to him that we may come to that place where we shall never die.\u201d3<\/sup>\u00a0 In our beloved current church, Charlie was a great Christian man who died of cancer.\u00a0 On his deathbed while Mary his wife sat beside him, he asked, \u201cHoney, how does a man die?\u201d\u00a0 She said, \u201cWell, I guess you just ask God to take you.\u201d\u00a0 Charlie folded his hands over his chest, said a silent prayer, and went to sleep.\u00a0 Charlie woke up but not on this side of glory but the other.\u00a0 How confident the believer can be at the time of death.\u00a0 As Watts wrote, \u201cWhen I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, I\u2019ll bit farewell to every fear and wipe my weeping eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Know God walks the valley with you<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me\u201d (Psalm 23:4).\u00a0 Notice the truths in this verse.\u00a0 \u201cThough<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 It is not an if or a maybe but a certainty.\u00a0 \u201cI walk<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 We can\u2019t run or stop but must walk at the normal speed.\u00a0 God will determine the end, not us.\u00a0 \u201cThrough<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 It is a valley with an open end, not a boxed canyon.\u00a0 \u201cWeeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning\u201d (Psa. 30:5).\u00a0 \u201cThe valley<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 It is narrow and confining and our perspective is small.\u00a0 It is not a joy to be in the valley but it is a valley with a mountain on both sides.\u00a0 \u201cOf the shadow<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 A shadow is not the real thing.\u00a0 The mountain that casts the shadow is heaven itself.\u00a0 \u201cOf death<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201cI am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live\u201d (John 11:25).\u00a0 \u201cI will fear no evil for thou art with me<\/i>.\u201d\u00a0 When God walks with you through this valley, fear and doubt melt away.<\/p>\n Philip Doddridge wrote, \u201cI 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.\u00a0 Help me to turn it into the happy occasion of honoring thee, and adorning my profession!\u00a0 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.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n Stay positive and productive<\/span><\/p>\n Saying with Paul that we will press toward the mark at the end of our lives is easier said than done.\u00a0 If we are not diligent in the later years we will become what we don\u2019t want to be, negative, sour, and critical.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n I ran some track when I was in high school.\u00a0 I was never very good but for some reason the coach made me run the hardest race of all\u2014the quarter mile.\u00a0 That is one full circle around the track.\u00a0 I say the hardest because you basically have to run full speed for about as long as you can before you collapse.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 You can see the finish but you don\u2019t think you can make it there.\u00a0 Somehow you have to keep pushing until you cross the line.\u00a0 And you would like to be the first one!<\/p>\n \u201cLet 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\u201d (Heb. 12:1).\u00a0 The writer of Hebrews also told us that Jesus is the Author and the Finisher of our faith (12:2).\u00a0 He is the starting line and the finishing line.\u00a0 In the quarter mile, the starting line is also the finishing line.\u00a0 If we keep our eyes on Him as we come around the last turn, we\u2019ll have the strength to make it all the way to the right pace.\u00a0 Spurgeon said, \u201cO Lord, let them not die without hope, and may thy believing people learn to pass away without even tasting the bitterness of death.\u00a0 May they enter into rest, each one walking in his own uprightness.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n Face physical challenges well<\/span><\/p>\n As we come closer to the end of our days we naturally have more and more physical challenges.\u00a0 The outward man is perishing though the inward man is being renewed day by day.\u00a0 That is, it\u2019s not that the soul leaves the body as much as the body deserts the soul!\u00a0 The soul cannot be \u201cabsent from the body\u201d (2 Cor. 5:8) until the body \u201creturns to dust\u201d (Ecc. 12:7) and the soul can \u201cfly away\u201d (Psa. 90:10).\u00a0 This is why the soul is \u201cwilling rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord\u201d (2 Cor. 5:8) but cannot go until the body finally quits.<\/p>\n And the body is dying!\u00a0 \u201cIt is sown in corruption . . . In dishonor . . . It is sown a natural body\u201d (1 Cor. 15:42-44).\u00a0 The seed has to be put into the ground and die for resurrection to take place.\u00a0 This is not necessarily bad.\u00a0 William Law wrote, \u201cThe greatness of those things which follow death makes all that goes before it sink into nothing.\u201d6<\/sup><\/p>\n I remember reading about Vance Havner speaking to college students when he was in his later years.\u00a0 After he described the busy schedule that he was still keeping, a student said, \u201cIf I did all of that I would die,\u201d to which Havner replied, \u201cwho said you can\u2019t die?\u201d\u00a0 Paul said, why do you weep and break my heart, \u201cfor I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus\u201d (Acts 21:13.\u00a0 That is the Christian spirit when facing the challenges of the difficult years.<\/p>\n Leave a legacy after death<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBlessed 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\u201d (Rev. 14:13).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I trust that more will be done by these than I have ever done in my short life.<\/p>\n This makes me adjust my priority as I get closer to finishing my course.\u00a0 They will do the work, not I.\u00a0 They will multiply the work and extend it far beyond the time I have.\u00a0 Their work will be theirs but it will also be mine, just as my work is mine but also my predecessors.\u00a0 One plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.\u00a0 Paul put it this way, \u201cLikewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand; and they that are otherwise cannot be hid\u201d (1 Tim. 5:25).\u00a0 An old woodsman\u2019s saying is, a tree is best measured when it is cut down.<\/p>\n Doddridge also said, \u201cWell 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.\u201d7<\/sup>\u00a0 Unfortunately I cannot go back and change something that was not the best.\u00a0 I can only reconcile it with God and explain it to those I love.\u00a0 Someone asks, \u201cwill your children live out what you have taught them?\u201d\u00a0 I can only answer by seeing how they are raising their own children.\u00a0 \u201cAs arrows in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.\u00a0 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\u201d (Psa. 127:4-5).\u00a0 And as John wrote, \u201cI have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth\u201d (3 John 4).<\/p>\n Look forward to life after death<\/span><\/p>\n The most encouraging thing I have read lately is old Richard Baxter\u2019s, The Saints\u2019 Everlasting Rest.<\/i>\u00a0 It is a treasure of encouragement for the believer to look forward, not backward, at the end of his or her life.\u00a0 He wrote, \u201cI 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.\u00a0 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.\u201d8<\/sup><\/p>\n How often we have preached on and studied about heaven?\u00a0 How often have we, in our prophetic studies, contemplated the millennial joys that we will receive for a thousand years on this earth?\u00a0 How often have we studied Revelation 21 and 22 and wondered about the New Jerusalem our eternal home?\u00a0 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?\u00a0 Well, those times are coming, and soon!\u00a0 Why should we try so hard to prevent it?\u00a0 We should rather rejoice that our salvation is nearer than when we believed.<\/p>\n Paul said it best in the last chapter of his last epistle while waiting for martyrdom.\u00a0 \u201cFor I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.\u00a0 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:\u00a0 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\u201d (2 Tim. 4:6-8).\u00a0 And Peter said that we have been born again \u201cunto 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.\u00a0 Wherein ye greatly rejoice.\u201d (1 Pet. 1:4-5)<\/p>\n And so . . .<\/b><\/p>\n We can certainly walk with God in time of death.\u00a0 In fact, this is the time of our greatest faith and our greatest witness.\u00a0 I have heard many saints of God on their deathbed say, \u201cI am so ready to go.\u201d\u00a0 I have stood over many caskets and heard people say, \u201cHe is better off now.\u00a0 The pain and suffering is over, he is happier than we are.\u201d\u00a0 Well, do we really believe those things?\u00a0 I know we do and I encourage all of us to practice it ourselves.<\/p>\n I would be amiss if I did not end this article, and also this series, with an encouragement to know Christ.\u00a0 Perhaps you have read this looking for hope at the end of your life.\u00a0 Look to Jesus, the One Who loved you and gave Himself for you.\u00a0 He will save you from your sins and give you eternal life in heaven.\u00a0 Ask Him to be your Savior today.\u00a0 Then you will say with Simeon when he saw the baby Jesus, \u201cNow let they servant depart in peace . . . For my eyes have seen thy Salvation\u201d (Lk. 2:29-30).<\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We end our series about walking with God where it should end, considering the time of our death.\u00a0 I don\u2019t 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.\u00a0 That […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-7602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-christian-living-cross-discipleship"],"yoast_head":"\n\n