Afraid to Die?

(I brought this message to a 55+ community where I minister each week as a lay person).

According to a 2017 survey conducted by Chapman University in California, 20% of Americans were “afraid’ or ‘very afraid’ of dying. Two years later, another survey found that more than 40% of Americans were afraid, or very afraid of dying. That’s a 100% increase in only two years.

My question this afternoon, therefore, is a reasonable question – and perhaps all the more so because of the audience I am addressing since, and I’m only guessing now, the average age of those living here at Ashwood is mid-eighties.

How many of your friends and acquaintances here at Ashwood have died in the last 12 months? In the last 18 months? I have ask that same question nearly every year since I began ministering here eight years ago. I remember my mother, before she died in her apartment on the third floor, often said to me after yet another of her friends here at Ashwood died: When will it be my turn?

I don’t want to get very far into today’s message before first assuring everyone that this is a message of HOPE – hope in the definition of the work as it is used in the New Testament. The Greek word, elpis, means a ‘confident expectation’ of something God has promised us. And so, today’s message is a message of “confident expectation” – at least that is my intent. But this message is one of a confident expectation ONLY for a specific group of people. And what group is that?

We need to know that there are only two groups of people living on this planet – the Lost, and the Rescued.

The Lost live without Christ as their only God, Lord, Savior. They have never placed themselves under His absolute authority, having confessed to Him their sins, following Him in baptism, and living obediently to His commandments. OR, they have done all those things in their minds, but not in their hearts. They have deluded themselves into thinking they are saved from God's wrath at the Judgment Day. They are part of the number Jesus warned of in Luke 13 who will say to the Lord on that day: We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; Depart from Me, all you evildoers.’  In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Luke 13:25-28).

We spoke about that self-delusion last time, and so we will not take the time to repeat that message, but the main point of this is that the ‘Lost’ are not faithful and true followers of Christ.

It is the Lost who have every good reason to fear death. Indeed, they have every good reason to be terrified of dying. For them, there is only one final destination. It’s called an eternal torment in the Lake of Fire. Here is how the scene is described in the book of Revelation:

(Revelation 20:12-15) “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

The Lake of Fire is the final and eternal destination of all who’ve rejected God's offer of reconciliation with Him through the forgiveness of sins. It is the place the Lord Jesus described as one where the “worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. [Where] everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mark 9:49-49).

I’ve mentioned this next point before, and I do so again to make it as clear as I can – Jesus was deadly serious when He warned the Lost that hell is not only REAL, but that more people end up there than they do in heaven. Here is what He told the crowds during His sermon on the mount: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

And THEN He added this next verse: “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:13-15)

False prophets such as those who tell their congregations we all can have a ‘reasonable hope’ that hell is empty. Or those who tell them hell doesn’t even exist.

False prophets. Jesus warned us of them. St Peter warned of them: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment . . . then the Lord knows how . . . to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.” (2 Peter 2:1-4, 9)

False prophets. False teachers. Those who assert things to be true that the Bible unequivocally declares false, and vice versa. Listen: Hell is real and eternal. The Lake of Fire is real and eternal. And while I will not spend much more time talking about that destination, I will say this for the sake of clarity: There is only one way for anyone on this planet to avoid an eternity without hope of ever, ever receiving a ‘Welcome Home’ from our Creator God. And that way is Jesus, who said of Himself in various words: “I am the way, the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6)

Unless a person repents of their sins and subsequently lives a life of ongoing confession and daily obedience to the commandments of Christ – there is no hope for that person after death to ever receive eternal life.

No. Hope.

Okay, that was the bad news –for those in the group Scripture identifies as ‘Lost.’. Now the good news, the good news for the other group of people – the RESCUED, the follower of Christ, the child of God through his or her faith in what Jesus did for him or her on that cross – those in THAT group have NO reason to fear death. None. Zero.

Colossians 1:13-14, Paul, speaking of the Father: “ For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

And again, the apostle, this time to the Christians at Galatia: (Galatians 1:3-5) “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.”

From my experience over the years talking with Christians, I’ve found that many of those who sit in church pews each week are unsure about what happens to them after death. They think eternity is a huge question mark. But God gives us enough information about death of the Christian that no child of God should fear the grave. Let’s look only at two texts that speak directly to those who belong to Christ.

Here is Revelation 22: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new . . . . and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

And here is what the apostle Paul had to say about death: (2 Corinthians 5:1-8) “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . . Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

These two passages (and we could look at dozens besides) give us only a glimpse God's promise to the Christian about eternity. That we can know what awaits the follower of Christ on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death. 

But there are those in the pews who argue within themselves, “I am such a bad person. You don’t know what all I have done in the past. How horrible my life was. How can God really forgive me?”

Well, let’s let the infallible, inerrant, and wholly inspired word of God answer that question. Here is what God tells us through Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth – a church FILLED with sinners:

“Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or anyone practicing homosexuality, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, HCSB) 

My brothers and sisters here who are IN Christ through your faith in His love for you and in His sacrificial atonement for your sins – please hear this. This is important:

Despite the litany of damnable sins Paul cites in the text I just read – the Holy Spirit quickly focuses our attention on the good news in verse 11: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” 

I researched the meaning of the Greek words Paul used in this text and were translated into English. “You were washed,” means the person’s sins were completely, thoroughly, utterly cleansed through their initial baptism and ongoing confession and repentance of their sins.

“You were sanctified,” means God had purified them from those sins. He Himself had pronounced them ‘pure,’ set them apart for His work. He declared them to be holy because they were covered with the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

And finally, Paul tells them, “You were justified,” meaning, God had pronounced them to be righteous, innocent, and without guilt. And if GOD Himself pronounces us to be without guilt – He means what He says and He says what He means. God declares the penitent sinner to be righteous and innocent and without guilt. Period. Full stop. End of sentence.

Listen to these words of God to the Rescued in 2 Corinthians 5:1ff -- “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens . . . “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”

We could spend another few hours looking more closely at this text, but for the sake of time – you who are in the group called, Rescued – look at these words again: Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

Home in the body; Absent from the Lord. Or absent from the body; home with the Lord. Oh, hear this once again: Home. Absent. Absent. Home.

For the true Christian, death is like walking through the doorway leading out to the dining room, THAT is what the death of the body is like for the Rescued, for the Christian, the faithful follower of Christ – walking through the doorway leading from this life to life eternal. Immediately in the presence of God.

That being the case, then WHY would the Rescued fear death when what we have waiting for us on the other side of that door is what St John wrote for us in the last chapters of Revelation? Eternal health. Eternal safety from our enemies. Eternal joy where there is no longer any death, or sickness, or loss or pain.

Listen! You’ve read the end of the story! You and I know how it all finishes. Absent/Present – forever with the Lord immediately upon closing our eyes in death.

I will close with another piece of Good News – this news for the Lost.

If you are part of that group, as I warned earlier from God's infallible word, if you belong to that group, you have every reason to be terrified by death.

BUT – and this is critical. It is crucial: No one has to remain in that group called Lost. Anyone can be rescued – right now, this moment. We all have God's unchangeable vow: “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21)

If you are part of the Lost, then right now – I will give you a moment shortly – right now confess to Him your sins, as many as you can think of – sins of thoughts, sins of words, sins of actions. Then repent of those sins and ask the Father to cleanse your sins with the sacrificial blood of Jesus. And then thank God for answering your prayer and rescuing you from the domain of darkness and transferring you, right now, into the kingdom of His beloved Son. And if you have never been baptized, be baptized.

Absent/Present. The Rescued have no need to fear what only the Lost should fear. The Rescued have been redeemed, saved through the precious blood of the crucified Savior.