Truth For Life

Bob Lepine: Do you fear death? If so, you're not alone. People spend a lot of money and invest a lot of effort in trying to slow the aging process and defeat this mortal enemy. While science hasn't found the answer, the Bible teaches that we can live forever. We'll find out how it's possible today on Truth For Life. Alistair Begg is teaching from Genesis chapter 49.

Alistair Begg: There should be, as believers, that about our approach to death in every dimension, certain things that leave no doubt in the minds of the watching world that we understand that death is not oblivion, that it is not entry to a realm where no voice can be heard and no smile be seen.

Rather, for the believer, it is to be reunited with our loved ones. It is an opportunity for the Christian to proclaim that the King of Heaven has come down to earth and made a radical difference. You see, in the issues of life and in the issues of death, in the great crossroads of human experience, Christianity must make a difference. Otherwise, we find ourselves on the wrong side of the equation.

As Paul says, if Christ be not risen, then we are of all men most miserable because we are propping up a dreadful mythology. But he says Christ is indeed risen from the dead. Therefore, where and how we are buried says something.

Now, if I may just unpack this a little further, when Christianity speaks to this issue, it proclaims that God in Christ has come down from heaven in order that a number of things might happen. Why did Jesus Christ come? He came to deliver us from our sins. He didn't come to have a set up of camels and donkeys and stuff in the public square. Don't get sidetracked by that stuff.

He came to deliver us from our sins. The devil loves it when we start all that stuff, using all our energy and all our time worrying about whether we have a Nativity scene here or a Nativity scene there, as if somehow or another Jesus came to establish Nativity scenes. He came to deliver us from our sins. Where do you get that from? You get it from 1 John chapter 3 and verse 5. It says it right in the Bible.

You know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. Why did Jesus come? He appeared so that he might take away sins. Anything else? Yes, I have a second one for you, just a few verses down in verse eight: "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." Thirdly, the reason the Son of God appeared was in order that the books of heaven might be cleared.

Do you have any debt? Anywhere? On a credit card, in a bank? Somewhere you've got debt? And you look forward to the day when the debt would be cleared? The most awful debt of all is one that compounds itself as you go along. And what the Bible says is that we are indebted to God by virtue of our sins, but that the reason that God has come in the Lord Jesus Christ is so that our sins and our lawless acts may be remembered no more.

In other words, that our debt may be canceled. That we may not have to live with the burden of our guilt. This is good news for people. When I was a younger guy in Scotland, on Sunday afternoons my father used to play these LPs on our little stereo. He used to put five and six on at a time and immediately go to sleep, and I stayed awake and had to endure it.

The only thing that would wake him up was if you turned the volume down. So you had to keep the volume up to keep him asleep, but when you kept the volume up, then you had to listen to the thing. But in the course of that, I learned a lot of songs that I didn't really think I was interested in. And one of them went like this:

There was a time on earth when in the books of heaven an old account was standing of sins yet unforgiven. My name was at the top and many deeds below, and I went unto the keeper and I settled it long ago. Long ago, down on my knees, yes, the old account was settled long ago. And the record's clear today because he washed my sins away and the old account is settled long ago.

So many people in a quest for religious experience, good, nice, clean-fingernailed, starched-collared, middle-class American people, are afraid to go to sleep with the lights out or with the radio off. You need the light and you need the voice, for you're frightened that it may be the last light or the last voice you ever see or hear, because you carry with you a great debt of sin and your account stands against you. No matter what you have endeavored to do to wipe the record clear, you cannot do it.

And that is where death holds its terror. So surely it is good news if there is one who has come who by his death upon the cross would take and bear the brunt of all of our sin and of our rebellion and by his blood would actually cleanse the record of all of my sin and my rebellion. That's the message of the gospel, that's actually the message of Christmas.

Also, that he came in order that he might deliver us from every fear. The fear of judgment, the fear of the law, a servile fear of God, the fear of death itself. Since children are flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity. Why did Jesus come? Why did he share in their humanity? We're told, you don't have to guess about what Christmas is about, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

And he came in order to make us ready to live in his presence. Now we are the children of God and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we will be like him for we will see him as he is. When I die I will be like him for I see him as he is.

So the question about whether I get cremated, whether I die in a plane, whether I die in the ocean, whether I get buried in a box or whatever it is, all of those things that I get letters and concerns about—they're justifiable concerns—they're not really the issue. As I've searched the Bible, I can't find any normative way of disposing with the dead that is actually laid down for Christians.

Therefore, it becomes for us a matter of conscience. What we can say with emphasis is this: that the Bible's emphasis is on the change to which the Christian looks forward. A dramatic, visible transformation that is not tied to the state of our bodies at the time of burial, but is tied to the believer's union with Christ in God, for he alone has immortality and he alone can bestow eternal life.

Anybody here want to live forever? Say I do. But if you ask people, they all want to live forever when it comes to the crunch. The question is how. The Bible is clear. "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

Everybody everywhere is basing their hope of eternity on something. Basing their destiny on the forlorn dream that there is nothing when deep in their heart they know there is. And some who are here this morning have never come to a personal living faith in Jesus Christ, have never settled the issue of this great taboo subject of death, actually live tyrannized by it. You don't have to. So why do you? Would you not just trust in Christ?

Jacob gave these striking instructions to affirm the radical difference between the people of God and the surrounding cultures. The Egyptians had become expert at saving the carcass, but they knew nothing about dealing with the soul. Well-meaning people spend vast sums of money on total futility and stupidity.

Even at the best of it, it doesn't answer the essential questions of life: Who am I, where am I from, where do I go when I die, what happens next? And to that, Jacob stands as a radiant and classic testimony. He knew what he was asking when he asked about where he was going to be buried. And he also knew what he was asking when he was concerned about the blessing of his grandchildren.

It is interesting that the context once again is God's prior promise to him: "I will make you a community of peoples and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you." That was the promise. So when Jacob blesses his grandsons and when he crosses his hands to the head of Ephraim, who is to become the head of the whole 12 tribes, this was not a formality.

By faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff. Is that really such a big deal? Yes, it is. Because once again in this incident, Jacob was revealing to his posterity the fact that God had plans and purposes for them. He was declaring again his faith in the certainty of God's promises.

If we'd gone, for example, to Jacob and said to him, "Jacob, how do you feel about this blessing? I mean, do you feel it's going to happen?" I think Jacob would have said, "I'm sorry, I don't even understand that question. How I feel is actually an irrelevancy. God said it's going to happen. My fluctuating feelings do not alter that one way or the other."

People come to me and say, "You know, I have a problem, I don't feel forgiven." I say, "Well, did God promise in his word that he would forgive you? Yes. Have you come to God in repentance and faith and confessed your sins? Yes." Well, then frankly how you feel is a secondary matter in relation to the fulfillment of the promises of God. God said he promised to forgive you, therefore you are forgiven whether you feel it or whether you don't.

The blessings that we bring to bear upon our children and our children's children will emerge from the core convictions of our lives. And all who truly walk with God know that irrespective of any financial or material benefit that may be conveyed from one generation to another, there is only one lasting blessing that really matters and that is the blessing of God's continued abundant provision upon those who are his covenant-keeping family.

Finally, he knew where he was going. "I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave." Notice carefully the way the verse reads. The reunion that he anticipates with his people is not created by his burial in the family plot. The reunion does not come to fruition because of where he gets placed.

Jacob knew that he would have already been gathered to his people before they managed to make the journey to Egypt and bury him in the cave. Jacob was going to take his place in the family mausoleum with Abraham and Isaac, and he would be marked and sealed for posterity in that way, but the great truth about Jacob was that he wasn't there, he was gone. He was already gathered to his people.

Death holds no fear for the Christian. What we fear most we don't experience. To be absent from our body is to be present with the Lord. We cannot be separated from the love of God. So actually the location of our burial, and I thought about this last week when I was in Britain and as I drove past without mentioning it to anybody the plot where my family is buried, and I said to myself, "What do I really believe about this?"

Do I really need to get shipped from America over here? Does it matter that much to me anymore? And why doesn't it matter? Well, it matters for sentimental reasons, it matters for emotional reasons, but it doesn't matter for theological reasons. And when I think about it theologically, then I say put me anywhere you want to put me because I am not going to be there. And neither will you.

That, you see, is the significance of the Scottish folk song: "By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes, where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond, where me and my true love will never meet again on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. For you'll take the high road and I'll take the low road and I'll be in Scotland afore ye."

What's that all about? It's about two Scottish prisoners held in an English jail. The song is penned the night before one is to be hanged and the other is to be released. And the one who is to be hanged will reach Scotland by the low road of death before the one who is to be released will reach Scotland by means of the journey on foot or horseback.

And the one who is about to be released feels bad for the one who's about to be hanged and the one who's about to be hanged says, "Don't feel bad for me because you'll take the high road and I'll take the low road and I'll be in Scotland before you." Now that's marginal in comparison to this, but this is the issue of death for the Christian: don't cry for me.

Is this your faith this morning? Do you live with a sense of fear? Can I ask you a question? Just two questions and I'm done. If you died tonight, would you go to heaven? Do you know? And secondly, how do you know that you won't die tonight? Now if your answer is anything less than yes to question one, and since you cannot answer categorically to question two, are you prepared simply to throw the dice for another time? For another day? Another bedtime? Another week? Another plane flight?

And since you're going to base your hope of your destiny on something, I say to you again, why not? Why not cast yourself on the strength and authority of this book? After all, it has stood the test of time. Cast yourself on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one who has walked through death and come out on the other side. Why live your life on the basis of mythology and pagan superstition? Why in the world would you ever do this?

I'll tell you why. Because your eyes are blinded by the evil one and you cannot see the truth of the gospel. Therefore, you need to cry to God, "Take the scales off my eyes so that I can see that I ought to be really afraid of death because I have no hope beyond it. And then come to me and show me the wonder of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom I can have forgiveness and my record wiped clean. And then place within my heart the assurance and hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who will change our earthly body that it may be like unto his glorious body according to his mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things, even death, unto himself."

Jacob says, "Hey, I'll be in soon. Get it ready. Secondly, I don't want buried here, I want buried over there. And thirdly, when I pull my feet up in the end of the bed and go, realize this: I've been gathered to my people."

Bob Lepine: You've been listening to Alistair Begg on Truth For Life. Alistair returns in just a moment. As Alistair mentioned today, the only lasting blessing we can leave to our loved ones is the truths concerning God and his promises and provision. That's why it's our mission at Truth For Life to teach the Bible clearly and with relevance. Anyone who fears death needs to hear the good news of the gospel and we'd love it if you made this your personal mission as well.

We have resources to make it easy for you to do that. One of the items you'll find particularly helpful is a gospel tract from Alistair titled "Ever Wonder Why Your World Feels Broken?" In just a few pages and in simple, easy to understand terms, Alistair explains the overarching story of the gospel. These tracts are designed for you to give to those who have not yet met Jesus or are unfamiliar with God's plan of salvation. And we've priced them at our cost of five for a dollar, a pack of 25 for just $5. Look for them in our online store at truthforlife.org/tract.

By the way, if you're in pastoral ministry or serve as an elder in your church, consider joining Alistair September 29th through the 30th in Valencia, California, for the Basics West Coast Pastors' Conference. Alistair will be joined by Dr. Hershael York, Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The conference will take place at Crossroads Community Church. And you can find out more and register to attend at basicsconference.org. Now, here's Alistair with a closing prayer.

Alistair Begg: Father, we thank you that we're not left to stumble and bumble around, but that you've given your word to us. We thank you for the vast heritage which is ours in this place as a result of those who through the years have known that they were leaving and where they were going and knew what they were asking. And they've asked aright and we have become the beneficiaries of their gracious testimony of faithfulness. We bless you for all the saints who now rest from their labors, who spoke to us the word of life. We revere their memory. And we pray that more than that we may too in our day grant such blessing and live in the light of such truth that generations yet unborn will arise and bless and praise you as a result of our journey on the path of faith. Hear our prayer for Jesus' sake we ask it. Amen.

Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. If you have ever doubted your salvation or feared that it could be rescinded, join us tomorrow for a reassuring message. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.