The church that I am privileged to serve has a number of elderly saints. It is tempting in a church like this to think that death is something that comes upon the old. Though that is certainly true, we must all be prepared to die, and die well at that.
None of us is ready for death naturally. Death is unnatural and our flesh rejects it. God's Word and Spirit must do a supernatural work in our hearts to prepare us for death, whether it take place when we are 90 or 19.
Nancy Guthrie has edited a nice volume of essays on the topic of death. O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God. Published last year, the book includes contributions from the past, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, B.B. Warfield, Abraham Kuyper, Jonathan Edwards and the present, J.I. Packer, Michael Horton, Randy Alcorn, Timothy Keller.
Here's a taste from Keller, "Rubbing Hope into the Reality of Death":
Our future is not that we will live in an ethereal, immaterial world. You're not going to float around in the kingdom of God. You're going to eat; you're going to love. You're going to sing because you'll have vocal chords! In realms and degrees of joy, satisfaction, and power that you cannot now imagine, you're going to eat and drink with the Son of Man. On that day we're going to see each other and say, "I always knew you could be like this. I saw glimpses of it, flashes of it, and now, look at you!" You're going to get the life you always wanted. This is only the real defeat of death.
So the Christian hope, in distinction from the religions and cultures that offer you an impersonal future, gives you a world of love. In distinction from religions that give you an ethereal, immaterial future, the Christian hope gives you the life you've always wanted. Lastly, while other religions and cultures talk about an afterlife, none gives you the assurance of it.
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