Truth For Life

Guest (Male): Faith that goes the distance isn't dependent on surges of spiritual emotion. As we'll hear today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains what is crucial for us to have a sustained journey of faith, even when we go through difficult times or face our own mortality.

Alistair Begg: Can I invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis and to chapter 50? We're just going to read again these concluding words of the chapter. Genesis 50:22: "Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father's family. He lived 110 years and saw the third generation of Ephraim's children. Also the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph's knees. Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said, 'God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry up my bones from this place.' So Joseph died at the age of 110. And after they had embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt." Amen.

I've never been involved in any drama. I suppose if I'd like to be in anything, it would probably be some Shakespearean drama, maybe one of the gravediggers in Hamlet. Nothing very elaborate, certainly not Hamlet, certainly no great part, but I wouldn't mind trying one of the gravediggers' parts or I wouldn't mind Polonius either in Hamlet. I think I'm verbose enough to be Polonius. But I've often wondered what it must be like to play a part like that, night after night after night in a prolonged run, and then finally on the last evening, take off the costume and bid the part farewell and return to the normal course of events.

I'm sure there is a sense of attachment that goes beyond merely the playing of the part. And if there is any approximation to that in the teaching of scripture, it probably comes most forcibly when one is engaged over a prolonged period of time in a character study such as we've been with Joseph. And I hope that at least for a few of you, you will share with me the sense of sadness that is part of this. And I don't mean it in any nostalgic way, but a genuine sense of sadness in having as it were to close the book, close the chapter on the life of Joseph. For he has been a companion to us for a number of months now, and actually, although he has died, yet he has still lived and spoken to us through his life.

For many of us, our lives will never be the same again as a result of these studies in the life of this ancient patriarch. And we have tried as best we've been enabled to make application of the truth of God's Word all the way along the line. And tonight, in drawing it to a close, I want to make these three simple and straightforward further points of application. Clearly, we are forced to acknowledge the frailty of our own lives on any occasion when we are confronted with the biblical record of death. And that is the first straightforward point of application, namely, the frailty that we acknowledge.

It's not my purpose to go back and rehearse the points that we have made in consideration of the death of Jacob, but it is simply to be reminded and to remind one another of the fact that each of us, as we have said before, has a shelf life. In the same way as we find pieces of produce in our grocery stores marked by a date which is the suggested date to be used by, so in the economy of God and in the purpose of God, each of our lives are marked in that way. God has not chosen to give to us the date of our demise, but the psalmist tells us that every day of our lives was written in his book before one of them came to be.

He has given some indication of the longevity of life by addressing the issue of what it would mean to live for 70 years. Some of us tonight, by dint of a careful reading of the scripture and also an ability simply to observe the passing of time, realize that we are beyond our use-by date. Others of us feel ourselves to be very far away from the use-by date, of course never knowing what a day will bring forth. In the course of the afternoon, if some of you were watching the informational material that was provided on plane crashes, you will have seen as I did again the tragedy of the Potomac River Air Florida Flight 90 that went down there some years ago.

Some 75 of them died not as a result of the impact or of the explosion or of the loss in the air, but died as a result of drowning and died of hypothermia. The whole world holds its breath and watches that. The dust of death settles on the minds of people, but only for a moment or two, and then it is shaken off again and the radios are retuned and the stereos are reset and the band begins to play and life goes on. Folk live with the mythology that as flowers never bend with the rainfall, so as Paul Simon said, our lives will never end, which of course we know is just not true.

Now tonight, without being morbid in any way, the Bible here in the record of Joseph's death, as with others recorded for us in the book of Genesis, is there so that we would think about death. The Bible has a great deal to say about death and about dying. The prophet Isaiah, in the most glorious of passages in Isaiah chapter 40, as he speaks of the wonder of the creation of God and of the dramatic power of God, both in his calling the existence of creation into being, says in verse six of Isaiah 40: "A voice says, 'Cry out.' And I said, 'What shall I cry?' All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."

When the writer of Ecclesiastes, be it Solomon or someone else, reaches the conclusion of the matter as he puts it in the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, he has this comic-tragic picture of humanity nearing the end of its days, somewhat sightless and somewhat toothless and struggling along the road with the stiffened gait of a grasshopper that was suffering from arthritis. In the course of it all, the writer of the word says: "Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. Remember him, that is God your Creator, before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken."

A picture there of death, another picture, before the pitcher is shattered at the spring. Our lives are as fragile as pottery. Or the wheel broken at the well. The familiar turning of the wheel at the well suddenly gives out one day, so says the writer, will our lives give out one day. And the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. And so as we stand, as it were, and gaze at the realistic way in which Joseph approaches death, as we listen to the word of the prophet reminding us of the very ephemeral nature of each of our lives, as we have this graphic picture in the poetic books of the ending of our days and of the reality of it all, it is there in order that we would do what is not customary to do: acknowledge our human frailty.

We sing very little about those facts and we sing very little about the fact of death and dying. Nobody is writing hymns about these things. It's not particularly appealing and it is a great lack in much of our hymnody. When, for example, as just a very young man in his 20s, Murray McCheyne thought about these things, he penned these amazing words sometime in the early 19th century because his life was over by 1843. He wrote like this: "When this passing world is done, when has sunk yon radiant sun, when I stand with Christ on high, looking o'er life's history, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till then, how much I owe. When the praise of heaven I hear, loud as thunder to the ear, loud as many waters' noise, sweet as harp's melodious voice, then, Lord, shall I fully know, not till then, how much I owe. Chosen not for good in me, wakened up from wrath to flee, hidden in the Savior's side, by the Spirit sanctified, teach me, Lord, on earth to show, by my love, how much I owe."

One of the divine mechanisms in all of Holy Scripture to call the people of God to a due estimate of who we are and to a humble recognition of all that has been provided for us is the record in scripture of the death of those who die in the Lord. Blessed are those, says the Bible, who die in the Lord. All of us tonight will one day die. That is not in question, unless, of course, Christ should come in our lifetime. And the question is: will we die in the Lord or not? That's the first straightforward and simple point: the frailty that we are caused to acknowledge.

Secondly, the theology that we are called to embrace. I hope at least in the course of these studies you have had reinforced for you, as I have had for me, the fact that biblical doctrine is crucial, that an understanding of who God is and who we are in relationship to God, that a view of the world that is framed by his divine character and purpose is absolutely essential not only for human sanity, but in order that we might prepare to live correctly and to die properly. And the theology that we embrace now at the end of the 20th century is the theology which has been emblazoned for us in the life of Joseph and has been aptly summarized here as we saw this morning in this simple little phrase: "God will surely come to your aid."

You will remember that we said that the story of Joseph is the story of God's providence. And when we introduced the whole issue of providence, we said that the doctrine of providence was grounded in the first book of the Bible and had its name essentially given to it in a phrase in Genesis chapter 22. You may want to return there just for a moment to remind yourself of this, so that when people say to you, "Well, where do you get this doctrine of providence?" you can take them to this instance. In Genesis 22, as Abraham takes the son for whom he had waited all these years, as he takes in verse six the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife, and as the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son," Abraham replied. "The fire and the wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" And Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

The great truths of scripture run all the way down through the corridors of the Old and the New Testament, intersecting that which we see in the opening books of the Bible right through to the very end of scripture. Because in the very final verses of scripture, you have this promise of the coming of God to us in the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here in the words of Joseph, you have the promise given to these people that God will surely come to their aid, as we saw this morning.

When Paul writes in his great theological treatise to the Roman Christians in Romans chapter 5, it is this essential truth which undergirds so much of what he says. In Romans chapter 5, he says in verse six, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." At just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And the story of Joseph, the theology which runs through the book of Genesis as it is revealed in the life of Joseph, is, as we've said, the great and classic expression of Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Some of us started our studies in Joseph with a spring in our step, believing that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. And we end the studies in Joseph having come through hell on route, being confronted with the question: do I really and truly believe that? Some of us began, and the thought of losing a loved one was something that other people experienced, but we had never known, and tonight we sit in the awareness of that. Some of us had only joy and anticipation filling our hearts in the early days of the year when we opened the book of Genesis and turned to this 17-year-old boy, and we knew Romans 8:28. We'd had it on a little card we carried it in our purse and we used to say it to people, and we often said it glibly to people. We said it in grocery stores and we said it at the drop of a hat. Oh well, all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. And oh, we were so smart.

But we're not so smart tonight. Because along the journey, we've had our hearts broken, we've had our faith tested, we've had our insights taken out and reexamined in our homes and in our schools and in our marriages and in our parenting and in our teenage years and in our businesses. And God has been saying to us: do you really believe this theology? Do you believe this? Are you able to say with Paul later in his life, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have entrusted to him against that day"? I know of a surety. No matter what I've been through, no matter how I have been distressed, no matter how my heart has been broken, still I have learned through the journey with Joseph to affirm again: God is God, and my trust and my hope is in him.

Samuel Rutherford, in the writing of his memoirs, provided for a lady by the name of Cousins, who was the wife of one of Rutherford's ministerial colleagues, the opportunity to write a most glorious hymn along the lines of the theme of providence, a hymn again that we sing sparingly. I should stop saying this. It sounds like a judgment on the hymns we're singing. It's not. It should be seen as an encouragement of the hymns we're about to sing when we finally stop talking about it and start doing it. But in the hymn "The Sands of Time are Sinking," you have this tremendous third verse: "With mercy and with judgment my web of time he wove, and aye the dews of sorrow were lustered by his love. I'll bless the hand that guided, and I'll bless the heart that planned, when throned where glory dwelleth in Immanuel's land."

Or in a more contemporary song: "It will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One look at his dear face, all sorrow will erase. So bravely run the race till you see Christ." You see, it is not a feeling in our tummies which sustains us on the journey of faith. It is a theology. It is what we know of God. That when the difficult day comes, when we find as it were the bone in the fish that we thought was so beautifully prepared, it is in that moment, in the finding of the bone as it were in the experience of life, that we must then revert very clearly to what we know of God.

As Jeff and I flew in from Los Angeles on Wednesday evening, we were sitting in two separate rows. I was sitting one space away from a lady from Vietnam, as it turns out. This must be my Vietnamese period. If you recall Friday evening around suppertime, 5:00, 5:30, it was particularly cloudy. In fact, over the airport, it was downright foggy. And although we had flown in tranquility for most of the journey, as soon as we began to make our descent into the Cleveland area, life took on just that whole different kind of feel. And the pilot told us that we would be on the ground in ten minutes, and ten minutes came and went, and 15 minutes came and went, and it went to 17 minutes. And the little lady sitting beside me just kept saying one thing: "I can't see ground. I can't see ground."

Which was not blessing me in any way at all. And eventually I said to her, "You are not to be concerned that you can't see the ground. We ought only to be concerned that the pilot can see his instruments." For our feelings in those moments had to be brought under the jurisdiction of another. And indeed, our lives were humanly speaking entrusted to his care. And we did see the ground seconds before we landed on the ground. And she had then to go to Baltimore and I was done. So she had to live it all over again and I just had to make it safely home.

The hymn writer says, as I've told you before, "I thank you, Lord, that all my joys are touched with pain, that shadows fall on the brightest hours, and thorns remain, so that earth's bliss may be my guide and not my chain." That if I have learned one thing in the course of my studies in Joseph, it is this amazing truth: that God who fashioned us in our mothers' wombs, Psalm 139, who intricately wove us according to his divine purpose, has ordered all of our days and all of our steps. And our theology is Joseph's theology too.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life with a message titled Leaving a Legacy, and we'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. Here at Truth for Life, one of the things we're passionate about is telling you about who God is and about the gift of salvation he offers. And as we look ahead to Easter and celebrating the saving power of the cross, I want to encourage you to share the gospel story with friends or family members by handing out copies of the gospel tract titled "Ever Wonder Why Your World Feels Broken?".

This is a small 3 1/2 by 4 inch tract written by Alistair that's designed for you to give away as widely as you can throughout your day. It's perfect for sharing at the gym or the coffee shop. It's great to hand out along with an invitation to your church's Sunday worship service. It invites those unfamiliar with the Bible and God's plan of redemption to consider that the reason our world feels broken is because it is. This little tract explains the gospel in a simple, personal way and closes with an invitation to read the Gospel of John and to listen to a message from Alistair.

Again, the title is "Ever Wonder Why Your World Feels Broken?". And you can buy five for a dollar or get packs of 25 for just $5 online at truthforlife.org/tract. And if you add a donation at checkout, be sure to request the three-pack of "The Man on the Middle Cross" booklets. These are our way of saying thank you for your generosity. We are glad you studied the Bible with us today. So what kind of legacy will you leave? Tomorrow, we'll learn how to leave a lasting legacy that will comfort and encourage loved ones in our absence. I hope you can join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.