Precious Deaths

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. - Psalms 116:15

    This is one of the great psalms of David. It is a psalm that flowed from a believing heart, from the heart of that man who was a man after God’s own heart. David did not take the words of this psalm from books of theology, or from religious tradition, or sentimental stories. These words flowed from a regenerate, believing heart. These words arose from David’s heart and express his thoughts, emotions, and sentiments Yet they are also words of divine inspiration, written for our learning, admonition, and consolation. As Peter said, this psalm was written by one of those “holy men of God,” who, “spake as they were moved by God the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:21). We cannot be reminded too frequently of these two facts: (1.) All Scripture expresses the thoughts, sentiments, emotions, and personal characteristics of the men who wrote it.2.) Yet, every word of Holy Scripture is God breathed, inspired by God the Holy Spirit, so that the Volume of Holy Scripture is, in its entirety, the very Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16).

    Let me show you nine things God says to us in this 116th Psalm by the pen of his servant David. Then I want to answer some more questions about death.

    1. David talks about loving the Lord (v. 1; 1 John 4:19). “We love him because he first loved us.” His love for us precedes our love for him. His love for us infinitely supercedes our love for him!. His love for us causes our love for him. Still, this is the true confession of every regenerate, believing heart, "I love the Lord!” “We love him!” “1 love the Lord because he heard” my cry for mercy, my prayer for forgiveness, and my supplications of repentance!

    2. The psalmist talks with confidence of persevering faith (v. 2). He believed, according to the Word of God, that God gave him faith, kept him in faith, and would keep him in faith. David came to God just like we do, the only way any sinner can come to him, by faith in Christ (Heb. 11:6).

    3. He talks about trouble and sorrow causing him to call upon the name of the Lord (vv. 3-4). Without question, there is much more in the psalm than I will bring out in this brief study. Yet, the sense of the text is obvious. “The sorrows of death” are the sorrows wrought in the heart by Holy Spirit conviction (John 16:8-11).”The pains of hell” are the torments of a self-condemned heart (Lk. 18:13). “Trouble and sorrow” are the struggles of a soul seeking peace with God (Ps. 103). The result of real, Holy Spirit conviction is always faith in Christ. “Then called I upon the name of the LORD: 0 LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. “.

    4. Next, David talks about the character of God (v. 5). The Lord our God is gracious, righteous, and merciful, full of mercy!

    5. Then the psalmist speaks of God’s unfailing faithfulness (vv. 6-8). “The Lord preseiveth the simple” - The single-hearted; the sincere, the believing. “I was brought low, and he helped me.” He who helped David will help us (Heb. 4:16). The psalmist essentially says, "I will trust him to deliver me now and in the future who has delivered me in the past” (vv. 7-8).

    6. In verse nine, David speaks with assurance of a blessed hope. All who trust Christ alone as Savior and Lord, all who look to him alone for righteousness and acceptance with God have reason to live in the assured anticipation of eternity and heavenly glory with Christ (2 Tim. 1:12; Psa. 23:6).

    7. In verses 10-11, this man after God’s own heart talks in one breath about faith, confession, and affliction. These three things always go hand in hand. All who trust Christ confess him as their Lord and confess their faith in him as the only Way, Truth, and Life; and all who confess that the Christ of God, as he is revealed in the Scriptures, is the only Savior of sinners will suffer for their faith.

    8. In the latter part of the psalm, David seems to direct all his thoughts to the worship of the great, gracious God of salvation. He speaks of gratitude (v. 12), commitment to Christ (V. 13), public worship and praise (vv. 14, 17, 18, 19), and the believer’s voluntary surrender and consecration (vv. 16-18).

    9. Right in the middle of his talk about worship, David talks about precious deaths. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” (v. 15). While the Bible speaks of many things as being precious, it only reveals two things that are precious in God’s sight. His Son is precious (1 Pet. 2:4). His people are precious (Isa. 43:4). As far as God is concerned, everything about his people is precious; and that fact is precious to me. “The redemption of their soul is precious” (Psa. 49:8). Their lives are precious (Psa 72:14). And “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

    What is death

    You could get many answers to this question. To the family, death means a vacant place, a loved one gone. To the physician, it is a patient lost. To the biographer, it is the last chapter, the book finished. To the newspaper, it is a spot in the obituary, or a brief story, maybe. To the insurance company, it is a payment claimed. To the theologian, death is the separation of the soul from the body. However, when we think about death, either our own death or the death of a friend or loved one who has just passed away, none of those factual answers satisfy us. What is death? Here are four answers to that question. This is one thing we are all going to experience much sooner than we imagine.

    (1.) Death is the result of sin.

    “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). There is no greater proof for the biblical doctrine of original sin than the universal fact of death. All die because all are guilty. All die because all are sinners.

    (2.) Death is an act of God.

    “The Lord killeth and the Lord maketh alive. It does not matter what the secondary cause of a person’s death is, the first cause is God (Job 14:1-5). (3.)

    (3.) Death is the decay of the body and return of the soul to God.

    “The body returns to the earth from which it came and the soul to God, who gave it.” Whether that soul meets God in judgment or in mercy is not the issue being considered here. The fact is all men die. Soon, you and I must meet God! The prophet of old spoke faithfully - “Prepare to meet thy God!” Meet him we shall, very shortly.

    (4.) Death is the end of life on earth and the beginning of an eternal existence.

    Life after death is not a supposition. It is not a superstition. Life after death is a fact, a fact so thoroughly stamped upon the human conscience that it simply cannot be erased (Matt. 25:46; Heb. 9:27). This is what death is: The result of sin - An act of God . The decay of the body and the return of the soul to God - The beginning of an eternal existence. Yet, the Holy Spirit says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” So I cannot help asking this second question...

    What makes the death of a believer precious

    All believers are saints, people who have been sanctified. We were chosen to holiness in election (Jude 1), declared holy in redemption and justification (Heb. 10:10, 14), and actually made holy in regeneration by God the Holy Spirit imparting to us a new nature (2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:5-9). This is our threefold sanctification by the grace of God. When a saint dies God looks upon his death as a precious thing. Why?

    The death of God’s saints is precious in his sight because God does not see things the way we do. “The Lord seeth not as man seeth.” It is difficult for us to talk about death being precious because everything we see and know is here. God sees things as they really are. He knows that for his saints death is not a loss in any sense at all, but only great gain (Phil. 1:21). Death, for us, is not a penalty, but a promotion. Death is not the end of life, but the beginning. “To die is gain.” To lose a weak, mortal body is to gain an immortal, eternally strong body. To leave this world of sin is to enter the heavenly world of perfect righteousness. To drop this house of clay is to enter our house not made with hands in Immanuel’s glory land. To leave this temporary state is to enter an eternal state. To leave this world of sorrow is to enter the world of endless, heavenly bliss with Christ. “To die is gain!”

    The death of God’s saints is precious to him because the blood that redeemed them is precious to him. We belong toGod by the blood atonement of his dear Son. We have been reconciled to God by Christ’s precious blood. As our Surety he received his elect from the Father as a trust in the covenant of grace (Eph. 1:12). As our Redeemer he received his ransomed ones from the law as a purchased possession (Gal. 3:13). As our Savior the Lord Jesus receives each of his chosen, ransomed ones at the appointed time of love and grace from the Father by the gift of God the Holy Spirit (John 6:37-40). Christ the King shall receive all his people in resurrection glory by his power. Christ our Priest receives the chosen, one by one, when they are called from earth to heaven in death, as the Father’s answer to his intercessory prayer (John 17: 24).

    “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” because his saints are precious to him! (Jer. 31:3; John 13:1; 1 Cor. 2:9). He has done wonderful things for us in election, redemption., justification, regeneration, and sanctification. He is doing wonderful things for us in preservation and providence. Yet, our God has wonderful things in store for us which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has conceived. He has wonderful things yet to show us (1 Cor. 13:10-13). He has wonderful things yet to give us (John 14:1-3). He has wonderful things yet to do with us (Eph. 2:7).

    This statement applies to all believers. It is an unlimited, unqualified, unconditional statement of truth with regard to all God’s saints. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

    It matters not who the saint is.

    We can understand how that the death of a martyr like Stephen would be precious in God’s sight. Yet, his death was no more precious than that of the most insignificant saint. All believers have the same attending angels to carry them into Paradise, the same Savior waiting their arrival in heaven, and the same glorious inheritance with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

    It matters not when the believer dies.

    We talk of untimely deaths, and accidents, and of lives ending prematurely; but there are no untimely deaths. Every believer’s life is a completed, fulfilled plan. God takes his saints when it pleases him, at the time he has appointed. Our Master plucks the grapes of his vineyard when they are ripe and ready to be taken. He never picks green fruit and never leaves his fruit to rot on the vine. With regard to every believer, the hymn writer was correct, when he wrote...

    “Mortals are immortal here Until their work is done.”

    It matters not where the believer dies.

    It may be in a lonely hospital room. It may be on a busy highway. It may be upon a terrible battlefield. It may be in his own bed. That does not matter - “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Years ago, an old preacher in England rose one Sunday morning and announced a hymn, giving out the first verse like they used to do...

    “Father, I long, I long to see The place of thine abode,

    I’d leave these earthly courts and flee Up to thy throne, 0 God.”

    Then he closed his eyes, slipped down behind his pulpit, and died.

    It matter not by what means the believer dies.

    I have known some to die in very odd circumstances and by very strange means. I have known many to die suddenly, without warning. I have seen others die very slow, lingering, painful deaths. No matter how a believer dies, he dies by God’s appointment, by God’s hand, and his death is precious in God’s sight.

    What about the death of the unbeliever?

    There is nothing at all pleasant, comforting, or precious about the death of an unbeliever. I once knew a young lady whose father died in a state of rebellion and unbelief. As she stood by his coffin, broken-hearted, almost everyone who came by said to her, “Well, your daddy is better off now.” After hearing that statement countless times, the young lady finally said to one, “He’s in hell now! Do you call that ‘better off’?” The unbeliever’s death is a horror, a tragedy, an indescribable woe. God says, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord!” We cannot write blessed where God has written cursed; and we cannot write cursed where God has written blessed. “If you die in your sins,” our Savior said, “Ye cannot come where I am.’ Yet, to every believer, he says, “Where / am, there you (shall) be also.”

    When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies,

    I’ll bid farewell to every fear And wipe my weeping eyes.

    Let cares like a wild deluge come And storms of sorrow fall,

    May I but safely reach my home, My God, my heaven, my all!

    There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heav'nly rest,

    And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast.

    And when you see my eyes strings break, (How sweet my minutes roll!)

    A mortal paleness is on my cheek, There’s glory in my soul.

    “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’ “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.” That is what God says. The world says, “Blessed are the rich, the famous, the healthy, and the honored.” The world takes you into its lavish, luxurious club. There men and women are laughing, singing, and dancing. The room is filled with earthly joy. Nothing is beyond the reach of the rich and the mighty. Autographs are sought from smiling heroes. The best is none too good for those whom the world calls blessed. But all is vanity, a puff of wind, nothing more.

    Now, go into a darkened room. There is complete silence. A wife sits by the bed of a dying husband and holds his hand. The children stand around the foot of the bed. Tears fall silently down their cheeks. Only the ticking of the clock can be heard. For a brief moment the man opens his eyes widely, a smile crosses his face, and he breathes deeply for the last time. His spirit is gone. Of that man, God says, “Blessed! Blessed!” You cannot write cursed where God writes blessed; and you cannot write blessed where God writes cursed!

    Someday the silver cord will break, And I no more as now shall sing,

    But oh the joy when I awake Within the palace of the King.

    Someday my earthly house will fall, I cannot tell how soon twill be

    But this I know - My all in all Has now in heaven a place for me!

    Someday, till then, I’ll watch and wait, My lamp all trimmed and burning bright,

    That when my Savior opens the gate, My soul to him will take its flight.