The following message was delivered
on Sunday morning, December 5th, 2004, in the adult Sunday school
class at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now for the benefit of some who
may hear the material that I plan to set before you in this Sunday
school hour who have not been a part of the shared life of
our congregation in recent months, Let me sketch in just a few historical
facts. My dear wife went to be with
Christ on September 20th of this year, 2004, after a six-year
battle with cancer. And when the cancer spread from
her back and lungs to her liver in March of 2004, we had some
very weighty decisions to make with respect to further treatment,
and if so, what kind, if not, how we could with good conscience
stop any treatment and still be confident we were not violating
the Sixth Commandment. And when her condition worsened
to the point where I, as her primary caregiver, could no longer
adequately care for her needs, I announced an indefinite leave
of absence from my pastoral responsibilities, gave myself to caring for her,
and then again had some very weighty decisions to face when
it was evident that I, and even I with some other help from the
family, could not adequately respond to her needs. Should
we put her in the hospital? Should we keep her at home? Should
we call in the help of hospice? And then, less than two weeks
after Mrs. Martin's funeral, her 95-year-old
mother died in a nursing home in Florida And as the one legally
responsible to settle her affairs, I had to fly down to Daytona
Beach during the last week of October. Now, these two events
and all that surrounded and followed them forced me to do much serious
thinking concerning very many practical issues relative to
the matter of death and the subsequent matters that flow out of death. And what I'm attempting to do
in this Sunday school hour is to pass on some of the fruit
of this thinking in the form of pastoral counsel concerning
matters related to our death. Now, I want to make it plain
that I am giving pastoral counsel. I am not speaking as the Oracle,
but my fellow elders encouraged me as soon as I felt I had filtered
these things through enough to conceptualize them in an orderly
way, and that I could emotionally take whatever trauma might come
in working through them, that it would be unto edification
to all of the people of God were I to share some of these perspectives. And I underscore again, in the
form of pastoral counsel, I'm very, very conscious that others
may come into similar circumstances, but with many dissimilar factors
with which you must wrestle. And so in no way am I saying
that the decisions that we made in conjunction with our Tailor-made
circumstances should in any way be considered as the one-size-fits-all
for others. And I would be deeply grieved
if anyone interpreted what I'm about to say in that framework,
if anyone used it in that way. It is a blatant misuse of my
concern in this hour. Now, as usual, I want to begin
with three foundational principles rooted in the Word of God, things
concerning which there is no debate if you believe your Bible. And the first is this, that you
and I must face realistically the fact that we shall all die. We must face, not theoretically,
but realistically, the fact that we shall all die. Hebrews 9.27, It is appointed
unto men once to die, and after Adam's sin, speaking to Adam
as the head of his race, God says, Dust you are, and to dust
you shall return. Genesis 3.19 or Romans 5.12,
As through one man sin entered into the world, and death passed
upon all men, for that all sinned. The only exceptions of which
we are aware are Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind,
and Enoch, who went out for a walk one day and was not, for God
took him, and those who will be alive at the second coming
of our Lord Jesus. But apart from Elijah and Enoch
and those alive at the return of our Lord, The one certain
thing about life when we breathe our first breath is that we shall
breathe our last breath. Ignoring that reality will not
blow it away. Submerging it to the level of
subconsciousness will not remove it. And you and I live in a society
that seeks to ignore or cosmetize the reality of death in a way
that is nothing short of shameful. I'm reading at the suggestion
of my dear friend Mrs. Esalind Blaze, the book called
To Live Again, written by Catherine Marshall, the wife of Peter Marshall,
who was chaplain to the Senate and pastor in the Washington
area, who died at a very young age. And she excerpted these
several paragraphs from one of his sermons in which he was speaking
of his concern about the American way of death denial. He wrote,
and apparently preached, Why in our day do we shun the fact
of death? We try so hard to disguise it. We are so stupid about it. We
rouge the cheeks of the corpse and dress it up in its best suit,
and then we say with ridiculous gravity how natural he looks,
as if there could be anything natural about a corpse. We who
call ourselves Christians act in a very pagan way. We gaze
upon the lifeless human clay, we touch the cold cheek, we line
up to pass by the casket and quote, view the remains, as the
stupid phrase has it, as if we had never heard of the soul and
never understood what personality is. If this thing called death
were some leprous calamity that befell only a few of us, If it
were something that could be avoided, then our conspiracy
of silence concerning it might make some sense. But it is life's
great and perhaps its only certainty. And that principle is foundational
to everything that I want to pass on to you this morning.
that you and I must face realistically the fact that we shall all die. Second principle is that the
time, the circumstances, and manner of our death are appointed
by God. The time, circumstances, and
manner of our death are appointed by God. You will remember, I
trust, after the memorial service and that eloquent and profound
sermon of Pastor Donnelly from John 21, when the Lord spoke
to Peter and said in verse 17, I'm sorry, in verse 18, When
you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would. But
when you shall be old, you will stretch forth your hands and
another will gird you and carry you where you would not. Now
this he spoke, signifying by what manner of death he should
glorify God. And when he had spoken this,
he said to him, Follow me. And following Jesus meant an
embrace from the heart of the Lord's words that the time, the
manner, and the circumstances of his death were ordered and
appointed by God. Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verses
1 and 2 underscore this principle again in language familiar to
many of us. For everything there is a season
and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born
and a time to die. A time appointed by God. 2 Kings 13.14 says, Now Elisha
was sick of the sickness whereof he died. This man that could
by God's power raise others from the dead whose body, lifeless
in a cave, was the occasion of someone else being raised from
the dead, he is sick of the sickness whereof he dies. And he is powerless
to turn away that sickness, though he could raise others from the
dead. And another was raised from the
dead by touching his dead body in a cave, because the time,
the circumstances, and the manner of our death are appointed by
God. And Paul and Peter were conscious
of this. Paul could say in 2 Timothy 4.6,
the time of my departure is at hand. And 2 Peter 1.14, Peter
speaking in similar language says, the time of the putting
off of my earthly tent is at hand. So, this second principle
with which you and I must wrestle and internalize is that the time,
the circumstances, and the manner of our death are appointed by
God. And then the third, and this
is crucial to everything that follows. As true followers of
Christ, we should consciously desire, earnestly pray, and responsibly
plan to have a Christ-magnifying death. As true followers of Christ,
we should desire, plan, and pray that we may have a Christ-magnifying
death. And I take that language directly
from the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 1. According to my earnest expectation
and hope, that in nothing shall I be put to shame, but that with
all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether by life or by death." He wants a Christ-magnifying
death. And each of us who can say with
the apostle, for to me to live is Christ, ought to be able to
say, yes, this is my conscious desire, this is my earnest prayer,
and where possible, this is the subject of my careful planning,
that I might have a death that brings optimum glory to Christ,
a Christ-magnifying death. So those are the three foundational
principles that rest beneath everything that's going to follow
in the way of some practical pastoral counsel concerning matters
related to our death. So I move from the foundational
principles then to the practical pastoral counsels growing out
of and resting down upon these three principles. And the first
is this. Maintain a death-ready walk with
God and with men. Maintain a death-ready walk with
God and with men. When Paul speaks in Acts 24 of
his confidence of a future resurrection, he says, in the light of that
reality, herein, within this framework, that my death shall
issue eventually in a resurrection, a resurrection that will issue
in standing before God, in this sphere of reference, I exercise
myself, I undergo a conscious, continual spiritual discipline
to have at all times a conscience void of offense towards God and
towards man. In other words, Paul lived in
a death-ready walk with his God and with his fellow men. A death-ready
walk with God. Nothing that need be settled
should I die tonight, either with God or with men. And how crucial this is, because
as Proverbs 27.1 says, Boast not yourself of tomorrow, for
you know not what a day may bring forth. We do not know if we will
undergo an accident that will take away our intellectual faculties,
put us in a coma, and if there are issues that should have been
settled with God, there's no opportunity to settle them. If
there are issues that should have been settled with husband,
wife, children, fellow believers, no opportunity to settle them.
Dear people, I cannot beg you with enough pastoral earnestness,
commit yourself by the grace of God to have a death-ready
walk with God every single day of your life. I can testify what
a blessed thing it was When my wife slipped into a coma, there
was nothing concerning which I needed to pray, Oh God, please
bring her out of that coma for five minutes. I've got to make
this issue right with her. I prayed God might bring her
out with some burst of felt experience of the nearness of Christ as
we've read in biographies that some have done. I said, Lord,
if that would please you, it would greatly encourage me, for
I know you have access to her mind when I don't have access
to it. God didn't answer that prayer,
but I am so thankful there was no unfinished business with that
dear woman. Could you say that of your wife
this morning, men? If you tripped on a stair, broke
your neck and died, would there be any unfinished business? God
helped you to get it dealt with today. Any controversy with God? Hidden sins that you're not wrestling
to mortify and deal with? I beg of you, take seriously
the uncertainty of death and determine by the grace of God
to maintain a death ready walk with God and with man. In Henry Scudder's lovely book,
The Christian's Daily Walk, he gives a word of counsel that
often on throughout my Christian experience I have found very
helpful. He said, when you lie down at night, put yourself on
your deathbed. Imagine this is the last time
you will lie down with consciousness before you go into the presence
of the Lord. And whatever you would want to
settle in those last moments, settle it before you drift off
to sleep. Dear people, that's what I mean
by living a death-ready life. Death-ready before God and before
man. Secondly, do all you can reasonably
to put your house in order. Now, where do I get that phrase,
put your house in order? Well, it's found twice in the
scriptures. Isaiah 38 in verse 1, when the prophet comes and
announces to Hezekiah that he's going to die. In those days,
Hezekiah was sickened to death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son
of Amos, came to him and said to him, thus says the Lord, set
your house in order, for you shall die and not live. And the clear implication is,
if you're going to be ready to die, your house ought to be in
order. Set it in order, because you're
going to die. And no self-respecting child
of God wants to die having left his house in disorder through
carelessness or procrastination. even a very evil man who took
his own life and committed self-murder we read that he had sense enough
to set his house in order 2 Samuel chapter 17 you can turn to these
passages I'm quoting most of them but I'll not be insulted
if you turn to them 2 Samuel chapter 17 and verse 23 and it
came to pass I'll read verse 21 after they were departed,
that they came up out of the well and went and told King David.
This was one of those incidents in David's life when he's being
chased around by Saul. And Ahithophel, who had been
his trusted counselor, his counselor was not followed. Verse 23, And
when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he
saddled his donkey, arose, went to his home and his city, and
set his house in order. and hanged himself and he died. Even a man whose heart is filled
with this consummate wickedness of taking his own life had enough
sense that though he would leave people with the horrible grief
of a suicide in his family, he would not leave them with the
mess of a disorderly house. He set his house in order. And so, as God's people, we must
have that determination to do what that phrase means. And it's
crucial because it does reflect our view of God and the nature
of our relationship to God. When Paul is sorting out the
disorder in the church at Corinth, particularly in their seasons
of public worship, and he's seeking to undergird all of his meticulous
counsel about how to set their religious house in order, their
worship house in order, he undergirds his counsel with these words,
verse 33, For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. You
as a church are the house of God. What's going on in that
house does not reflect accurately on the character of God. People
would think your God is a God of confusion and disorder. Stop
it! You are accurately to reflect
the character of your God in your worship. And I say this
phrase, set your house in order, is also to be buttressed by the
fact that the manner of our death ought to reflect the character
of the God whom we say we know and we love. And then verse 40. But let all things be done decently,
that is, with proper decorum and in order. Because God is
a God of order, and God would have us reflect Him, even in
this practical matter of our preparedness for death. And then,
of course, the old standby, the golden rule, Matthew 7 in verse
12. As you would that others do unto
you, even so do ye also unto them, for this is the law and
the prophets. If we're to sum up all of the
ethical demands of the revealed will of God, it all boils down
to this, as you would that others do to you, even so do ye also
unto them. Would you like to be left with
a mess where someone did not sort out the disposition of his
or her goods, gave no indication as to how they want to be buried,
what they wanted in a memorial service, did not take care of
practical matters. Suppose they enter into a comatose
state and you had never talked about the matter of extreme measures
to resuscitate. Think of the confusion that is
left with others. Well, as you would that others
do to you, even so do ye also unto them. No matter how busy
and pressed we are, dear people, if we've come to grips with those
foundational principles, that we're going to die. the time
and the circumstances and the manner of our death is appointed
by God, but for the most part is hidden from us, then surely
we ought to give priority to setting our house in order if
we love those who behind us are going to have to pick up the
pieces after we are gone. And so do all you can to put
your house in order. I've tried to lay a scriptural
foundation for that. Now then, what are some of the
specifics to putting our houses in order? Well, let me outline
several areas. Number one, maintaining a current
will. Maintaining a current will. If you have minor children, you
don't want the state to take over their care. If you have
talked through who you would like to appoint as the guardians,
then make that claim in your will. If you don't want whatever
earthly possessions God has given to you to be unnecessarily swallowed
up in the state taxes, etc., etc., then there are ways, perfectly
legal, none of them illegal and sneaky, to bypass all of the
mechanics and the loss of funds with probate court, etc., maintain
a current will that identifies and gives directions in these
matters, and let me say by way of an aside, there is an American
concept that any decent parent will leave his estate to be equally
divided among his children regardless of the worthiness of those children. That is not a scriptural concept. My Bible says in Proverbs 17.2,
a servant that deals wisely shall have rule over a son that causes
shame and shall have part in the inheritance among brethren. This idea that because you go
to the Lord and you make out your will, my estate shall be
equally divided, blah, blah, blah. Where do you get that?
You have a responsibility before God with the stuff that he's
put in your hands. Be it house, be it savings accounts,
be it a retirement account, and you need to determine before
God how you feel that can be most disposed to the honor of
God and to the furtherance of the purposes for which you, with
the blessing of God, accumulated it. And I challenge you to think
through this whole idea. Well, your children won't be
offended. Well, maybe some of them should have thought of that
when they lived irresponsible lives. And along came some servants,
some who are not blood-tied to you, who have earned by their
manner of life and their relationship to you a greater part in that
inheritance. Maintain a current will. Secondly, consider And here I'm
not taking the role of a financial advisor. Don't anybody do anything
because of some things I throw out. These are just things to
tweak your thinking in areas where mine was not tweaked until
a relatively short time ago. Consider P.O.D. accounts. That
is, pay on debt accounts. When I went down to Florida to
settle my mother's accounts, all I needed to do was show the
will to the lawyer And he said, there's a branch bank where all
her accounts are, right across the street. And in 45 minutes,
I walked out with all of her affairs settled. Because on all
of her accounts, four years ago, knowing that she was failing,
she was going into an assisted living home and might from there
go into a nursing home, I was given power of attorney to handle
her accounts. And on all of her accounts, Annabelle
Rockefeller, P.O.D., Marilyn K. Martin, and Albert N. Martin.
Pay on death. I just walked in with my wife's
death certificate, and my mother-in-law's death certificate. Accounts were
opened in the Wachovia Bank up here, and that was it. Less than
24 hours. Now, we're not talking about
great sums of money, but nonetheless, it made it so much simpler. I
never knew anything about this until four years ago. My mom
and my daddy didn't tell me anything about those things. So I encourage
you to look into these matters so that in setting your house
in order, you make as simple a task as possible for those
who are left behind. Consider the matter of power
of attorney. so that someone you trust, a
Christian brother, perhaps a son or daughter, with whom you can
talk through the dynamics, the ongoing changing dynamics of
what you would desire to do with your estate, and you have someone
that you trust who is given power of attorney, then further, this
is crucial, talk through and have written out some medical
directives. medical directives, including
discussing end-stage care. Now, the Sixth Commandment has
something to say to us. In the Shorter Catechism, the
question is asked, what doth the Sixth Commandment require?
Answer, the Sixth Commandment requireth all lawful endeavors
to preserve our own life and the life of others. And what
doth the Sixth Commandment forbid? The sixth commandment forbiddeth
the taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbor unjustly,
or whatsoever tendeth thereunto. We have a responsibility to do
all within our power to preserve our own life and the life of
others. But as Francis Schaeffer so helpfully
said, it is one thing to preserve life It is another thing to simply
delay and stretch out the act of dying. Now that's not going
to resolve all the ethical issues, but I have found it very helpful
in thinking through these matters with respect to my own beloved
wife, in thinking through these matters and giving counsel to
others. You've been very kind. None of you asked. Why, when
the cancer metastasized to her liver, that we decided to have
no more chemotherapy? I'll tell you why. The doctor
said it would take a very potent chemotherapy, that her compromised
blood system would likely not bear but one or two treatments,
and it only held out a 15% chance that it would give her one or
two more months to live. And we said, no. If God has allowed
the cancer to metastasize in that main organ that affects
digestion, as she so sweetly embraced it and said, I'll be
going home, dear. This is my door. You see, that
didn't catch us unawares. We had thought out and talked
through before we came to the situation. So when we're in the
doctor's office, it was no big deal. We said, Doc, we've already
gone down this road in our discussion. No more chemo. You see, it would
have been very difficult had we not thought the thing through
and discussed it and been of one mind to suddenly be hit with
this thing. And we would have been tempted
to respond emotionally rather than rationally. And so I urge
you in setting your house in order in this matter of directives
concerning medical care, including end-stage care, to think through
what are the requirements of the Sixth Commandment. Does the
Sixth Commandment demand that we do everything with modern
technology to keep someone breathing for as long as we can keep them
breathing? Does it? I'm not sure that it
does. So we've got to think that thing
through. And then, of course, with respect
to end-time care, I can't say enough about our experience with
the hospice care under the St. Barnabas Medical System's hospice
branch. And many people don't understand
hospice. Hospice care is care provided
for people whom the medical community has declared terminally ill. This is why you can't be a candidate
for it with your insurance or with Medicare unless a doctor
is prepared to make the statement that his estimate is you have
only six months to live. Now that can be renewed and in
some cases we know of people who have had hospice care for
four years. But it wasn't because they were milking the system.
It's because doctors can't play God, though at times they tried
to. But the hospice care is care
that is meant to help people to be as comfortable as possible
until they die. And that means where oxygen is
needed and would be helpful, as in my wife's case, it was
for some strange reason, the moment she started having the
oxygen, all of her coughing from the nodules in her lungs stopped.
It was almost magical. And so from the time we had the
hospice care for almost two months until she died, there was no
coughing. Whereas before that, she coughed
continually like someone who had smoked three packs of cigarettes
a day for 40 years. Then, when there was physical
distress, being able to administer the morphine to relieve that
in the light of Proverbs 31, giving strong drink to him that
is ready to die, the whole concept of narcotics being ordained of
God to help in end time pain and distress, and this is why
I've had copies made of the A lovely little article in one of my medical
newsletters that I get. I get four of them, four or five
of them. I think one of them I've discontinued.
And occasionally I find articles that are helpful in a general
way. And this one by a doctor explaining
the concept of hospice care and the benefits of hospice care.
And I would say by way of personal testimony now, and this is why
I said circumstances are different. Her circumstances were such that
there was nothing that could be done for her in the hospital.
And we desired to care for her as an expression of our love,
the we being me, my daughter Heidi, my sister Joyce, that
I felt so strongly that with her selfless ministry to me for
all the years of our marriage, that I wanted with all my heart
to pay back in some little way by granting that end time care. And so it was our privilege to
do that. It gave an opportunity for children
and grandchildren to see the process of dying and not be insulated
from it. I'm 70 years old and I never
saw that end time process. I did visit with my dad in his
last weeks, but in the providence of God, I wasn't able to be there
and to walk with him, as it were, right down to the river until
he crossed it. And I believe there is something
vital in terms of bringing us into biblical reality by having
that exposure to the children, to the grandchildren, closer
friends who can come and say their last words as the end draws
near. I believe that the benefit of
that will be invaluable. I had an example of it even this
past weekend as I've been trying to take one of my grandchildren
one day a week for an afternoon or an evening or an overnight
and spend quality time with them to be able to sit and show them
the pictures when they stood by the bedside of their grandma
three days before she went home. and to talk to them about what
they saw and what happened and what was going on that they might
have lasting impressions, not in a morbid way, but again in
a society that cosmetizes death and talks about they've passed
on and they've gone from us and the rest and nobody's ready to
say they died. They don't want to use, like,
it's the dirty word in a society that's coarse and uses all kinds
of expletives. They don't like to use the four-letter
word, he died, because it's a reminder that that's their end as well.
And then from directives for medical care, another category,
maintaining a current will, considering some of the financial alternatives
that will minimize probate and unnecessary taxes, etc., directives
concerning medical care, then another category is provisions
and directives for post-death issues. You're not going to vaporize
when you die. Somebody's going to have to do
something with that part of you that remains. What do you want done? What do
you feel will most honor God? in the things that will surround
what will necessarily have to be done when your spirit exits
your body. And along that line, may I give
these practical counsels? Be sure to secure your grave
plots. Don't leave your loved ones to
have to be sitting with a funeral director and scurrying about,
where's a place that's within reasonable distance and That's
cruel, dear people, to leave that kind of stuff with all of
the emotional trauma of the death of a loved one. Don't add that
burden to it. Don't add that burden. Secure
your grave plots. Discuss what funeral home you're
going to use and the fundamental arrangements that you want for
your funeral. I think many of you have come
to the persuasion and it sort of turned the corner with the
funeral of Gordon Daughtry and then Paul Bischoff and then I
believe was further sealed with my wife of using the church facilities
rather than crowding into a little room that you're not familiar
with at a funeral home for the various facets of the funeral
arrangements but discuss that with your loved ones and may
I put in a little plea again an American practice that Some
countries, in Sweden it's been greatly done away with in terms
of spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars for flowers that in
a few days are all thrown away. Now I know my wife had a higher
profile because of her relationship to me and people who knew her
in various parts of the world, but the memorial gifts came in
totaling close to $4,500. There's an awful lot of Bibles
going to China. instead of flowers rotting somewhere
in the junkyard. There's going to be a number
of people who can't afford hospice care who will receive it because
they don't refuse it to anyone. For people who don't have insurance
coverage, don't have the personal finance to afford it, they have
a policy that they do not refuse their services when they are
needed. And what a joy it is for me to think that that care
that my beloved received is being received by people who don't
have the coverage that we did. And so, think through those issues. And then what a joy it is, I
want to speak pastorally, if you've thought through and talked
through with your loved one what you want in your memorial service,
what hymns you want, and if possible, even what text you want preached.
What a joy it is as a pastor to stand up before people, many
times, many unconverted people and say, Every facet of this
service is the legacy of the one whom God has taken home.
John, Henry, Mary, Elizabeth thought through how they wanted
their Lord honored in their funeral. And what I am privileged to lead
in this service is their legacy to you. It's a wonderful thing
pastorally. It really is. And in a very real
sense, it's your final shot across the bow in terms of your witness
to those who would be present. So I would urge you seriously
to think through and talk through in some detail provisions and
directives for post death issues. And then don't ignore if you're
going to have a plaque over your grave plot or a memorial stone. When I go over to that cemetery
where my loved one is laid. I see gravestones that go back
to the 1700s. And when I began to think about
the fact that the Lord delays his coming, what's etched on
that stone over my wife's grave could be a witness for two to
three hundred years. I said, Lord, I want to make
it right. And so my daughter and I, we had many exchanges
over what were the right words that would capture the essence,
that would speak forth the truth that is distinctively Christian,
and we changed an adjective here, changed a word here, wrestled
with it for weeks, until three weeks ago I went to the American
Memorial Company in Englewood and picked out the stone, and
when I had shown the man a little sketch of the stone, what I wanted
to look like, and had typed out the text. He said, Mr. Martin, you may be ending up
spending more for the letters than for the stone. I said, sir,
it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant. This is the
tribute that I want to my wife and the witness that I want her
to make. possibly for not only decades,
but possibly, possibly for several hundred years to come. And I
was naughty enough to sit with my calculator and figure out
if the Lord gives it 200 years, how many days that is and how
much per day that witness is costing. And I tell you, it's
pretty cheap testimony. And God willing, in the spring
when that stone is put in place because they can't do it till
the spring because they're afraid that they have to put in a footing
and it's too cold and the frost might keep the concrete from
settling and setting as it ought to and curing, that's the word
I want, curing as it ought to. God willing, some Sunday afternoon
we'll have an official unveiling and invite the church family
to come at which time I can explain to you the significance of the
words. Between now and then you're just going to have to wait. A
few of you, there were a few of you that I did show the thing
before we gave final approval. And these practical things, dear
people, what lies at the heart of them? At the heart of it is
the desire that Christ will be magnified in our death. That's
the organizing principle. That in everything pertaining
to our death, Christ would be magnified. Now, we have ten minutes
left. I'm going to ask Larry, if you
would please, to pass out some printed materials. One of them
is the single page that has the article by the doctor on hospice,
and then the other is a section from a large manual that hospice
from St. Barnabas gave us when we secured
their services And it's the chapter that deals with the issues that
you ought to seek to address responsibly and have on record
and have them either in a file, have them all in a large envelope
so that all things would be done decently and in order And so
that chapter will also be handed out to you to be looked at at
your leisure, husbands and wives to sit down and work through
together. Now, while they're passing that
out, we have these eight minutes left. I was hoping we'd have
a chance for time for questions. Are there questions that you
want to address to me growing out of the things we've considered
this morning? Yes, George. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think here again,
George, those those are matters. The question is, would I have
any counsel about securing plots, a sufficient number of plots
for the extended family? or being buried with your family.
Well, I think here again, there are so many variables, George.
Some families are so fractured and fragmented that it would
be practically impossible. On the other hand, there are
some situations where I think it can be a nice testimony and
reflection of family solidarity in a day when families are fragmented
and can be a kind of silent witness to the fact that this family
sought to maintain a sense of family continuity even through
the generations. So I think there's an area of
liberty and that one must sit and think and talk through what
factors pertain in our own specific situation. I can tell you even
the matter of to show how if you're seeking to think responsibly,
as many of you know, when you have double plots such as my
wife and I have, the the cemetery will allow a certain size stone
for a single plot. But if you're going to have a
a double plot with a double stone where the etch in the person
who's already gone on died, And the other can be etched in later.
And we were wrestling with should we get a double stone? And Heidi
said, Daddy, I don't think we should. I said, why, sweetheart?
She said, well, if in the future God should give you another wife,
would that be fair that every time she visited mom's grave
with you, she'd have to see you still attached to mom? I don't
think that would be fair to her. I looked at her with tears and
I said, you're your mother's daughter, always thinking about
the other person. So I took her counsel and so
we decided to get a single headstone and then my headstone will be
one the same size and sit next to it in God's time. So again,
those are matters I think where liberty can be exercised and
every family just needs to think those things through. You may
decide not to have headstone, just have a simple plaque. and
the availability of those things and what can be put on them.
There's all kinds of options open to us. But I think if we
come to this thing, not saying I'm going to be swept along by
what the American thing is to do, but say, no, Lord, I'm determined
Christ is going to be magnified in my death and everything pertaining
to it and following it insofar as it lies with me. I believe
it's going to make a difference in the way we approach these
things. Alright? Someone else had a hand raised.
Yes, Ron? Nice and loud for me. I didn't put my hearing aids
in. I don't put them in when I'm speaking. Alright. Would
you say that cremation is strictly speaking... I'm not getting you,
Ron. Cremation. Cremation. Is that unbiblical? Yeah. The question of cremation, is
it unbiblical? I would be irresponsible to just
shoot a one-liner, Ron. But I believe The way I generally
answer that is this, I believe a strong case for decent burial
of the body can be made from the scriptures. Starting first
of all with the theological perspective that the body is not just a shell
of what I am as creature made in the image of God. My body
is a part of me. When the scripture speaks of,
they didn't say they buried Stephen's body, they buried Stephen. And to respect what man is as
a body, soul, entity made in the image of God, though God
has no body, part of my image of God is my body. And therefore,
to show respect to that which is in image, secondly, that is
going to be raised in glory, God thinks enough of it as we
saw last week, that Christ does not disunite himself even from
the body when it's in the grave, that a strong case can be made
for decent burial under ordinary circumstances. Now obvious, if
there's a plague, and burning bodies is necessary for public
health and well-being, the Sixth Commandment would demand it.
You're out at sea. You're not going to have a rotting
corpse on board until you get to port. So, the counsel I generally
give is that from that theological and biblical perspective, we
ought to pursue, in so far as is possible, decent burial. Now, that does not mean the most
expensive burial and picking out an ornate casket and all
of the rest. See, those are the areas where
if we're thinking as Christians, we're not going to be bullied
along and say, well, people are going to judge how I loved this
person by the obvious expense or non-expense of the casket.
That's nonsense. That's nonsense. And we must
not be bullied along in that kind of pressure. That would
be my simplest, most reduced answer to that question, Ron,
and what I generally do when people are wrestling with it,
I sit down then with the scriptures and try to show that, and then
we can go further and I think demonstrate, and there's an excellent
article by S.M. Houghton that I have on file,
demonstrating historically that cremation has most often been
associated with non-Christian religions and pagan concepts.
and it's not been a Christian, Biblical, Judaic, Christian tradition. All right? We've got time for
one more question. We've got two more minutes. Yes,
Justin? Are there any specific or general
principles in the Bible that you haven't had a chance to talk
at length about what would happen in a situation where you haven't
anticipated it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, again, it
would be simplistic for me to shoot from the hip. I do believe
there are some basic principles that should guide us. And this
is where advanced directives are helpful. And we did not choose
the instructive directive where you provide your own this, this,
this, but not this, this, and this, but a point, a proxy directive,
and I was my wife's proxy, and we talked through what we felt
would be the right thing to do in her case, but I had that power
to overrule any doctor, any nurse, the power lay with me, growing
out of the things we talked about. You need to be careful of putting
this in the hands of someone who's not going to think biblically,
especially with the growing acceptance of euthanasia, which is a euphemism,
not a euphemism, it's almost an oxymoron. A good death. Murder
is not good. And we are to do all within our
power to preserve our life and the life of others. I would never
say that we should never use a ventilator. There are too many
instances where a ventilator has been a good bridge where
someone gained back sufficient strength in order to breathe
on their own and are living wholesome lives now, wholesome and full
lives. So I would be very reluctant to absolutize and say this but
not that, that but not this, and those are issues that in
the days to come, some of us in pastoral leadership are going
to have to do more reading from responsible biblical Christian
ethicists and try to give you some framework of response. But
it's 10.30. We've got to stop. Let's pray.
All right. Our Father, we do thank You that
Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. And
we pray that even in the matters we've wrestled with today, You
will help us to be a company of Your people, determined that
Christ shall be magnified not only in our lives, but in our
deaths. Help us to that end, we pray,
in Jesus' name. Amen.