In this series on "Last Things," we have made the following points:

* We are much like the people of faith before us who waited on the fulfillment of the promises of God.

* Soothsayers, star gazers, mediums, and sorcerers are all condemned in the Bible. Believers should not consult them.

* We should go to "the Law and the testimony." (Isa. 8:20.)

* Eternal life is based upon the nature of man having a body, soul and spirit.

* There is a coming "Day of the Lord." There have been many before, but none like this one.

Tonight, I want to address the matter of death. There is no controversy about whether this event will occur. "It is appointed unto man once to die." (Heb. 9:27.) There are major differences about the meaning of death, what happens, and what is beyond. But its reality is obvious. Christians have hope in death, information from God that the spirit of man lives on beyond death, and the greatest example displaying that mystery in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Some seek to minimize the role of death by saying that it is a natural event that happens to all living things. It is true that everything on earth that lives will die. Paul wrote, "The things which are seen are temporary." (2 Cor. 4:18.) Plants, animals, and man die. But is it a natural event? Most plants have a seasonal life. There is a natural cycle from spring to winter. But it is a mistake to place man alongside the plant and animal kingdom. He is not just another animal. Even animals resist dying. It is unwelcomed and unwanted. Man often lives longer in the flesh due to a strong will to live. Doctors acknowledge the role of this "will to live."

I do not accept the characterization that death is natural. Paul described it as an enemy. "For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Cor. 15:25-26.) Death, both physical and spiritual, is associated with sin. "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law." (1 Cor. 15:56.) Law-sin-and death are companions in Scripture. Jesus came to destroy this law-sin-death problem. It is not just a natural event that ought to be solemnly accepted. It is a great problem that demanded divine intervention to solve.

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death; that is, the devil. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb. 2:14-15.)

Now we can add to law-sin-death, the devil. He is the one who had the power of death and used it over man causing him to live his life in fear. Jesus came that he might "destroy the works of the devil."

(1 John 3:8.) Death is part of the work of the devil. He tempted Adam and Eve to sin; death followed as a result. Death always follows sin. "For the wages of sin is death." (Rom. 6:23.) "The soul that sins, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:4.)

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for all have sinned." (Rom. 5:12.)

Death is no more natural than sin or the devil! They all oppose man and his good. They are enemies that rob us. Do not accept it as something natural that happens to everything that lives. It is unnatural and took the work of Jesus to overcome this enemy. Every widow knows that death is an enemy; every parent who has lost a child understands it; every child who has lost a parent.

Outside of the faith of the Gospel, resigning yourself to death or accepting your mortality will be the hardest thing that you will ever do. We should not "resign" ourselves to this enemy passively. Jesus defeated it for us. We must learn how we can overcome Satan, sin, and death through faith in Christ.

Jesus came "to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of God; whereby the dayspring on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:77-79.)

No one should speak foolishly or light-heartedly about death and dying. Every statement in the Bible concerning death has a serious and sober note. This event demands attention by every person. We should not give it just a passing notice or brush it aside. We must deal with this event of all events. Solomon said, "There is one event that happens to all." (Eccl. 9:2-3.) "There is a time to be born and a time to die." (Eccl. 3:2.) This is the first pair of things among 14 pairs in verses 2-8. All of the other events occur in one’s life between birth and death. He did not name anything after death. This beginning and ending circumscribes all the earthly events of our lives. Death ends our existence on earth.

This one event should demand our best thoughts and our most serious deliberations. What we decide about it is more important than any decision made by the Supreme Court of our nation or any nation. Our decision is not a judgment passed upon others. It effects us directly and powerfully. We decide our eternity by this decision.

Death is "for keeps." When I was a child, we often played marbles. Sometimes we played "just for fun." When the game was over, we kept our own marbles. On other occasions, when we were ready to put out best marbles on the line, we "played for keeps." Death is "for keeps." It is real; it is serious business.

Before his death, Moses spoke these sobering words: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live. That thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him. For he is life and the length of thy days; that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (Deut. 30:19-20.)

Here are some of the most serious mistakes that people make concerning death: 1) They think that death ends their existence. The Jewish sect called the Sadducees thought that. (Acts 23:8.) They were wrong. 2) Some live without giving due consideration to this event. We live like "frogs or tadpoles in a pond without coming to the surface to look to the larger world outside." 3) They put off making any real changes in their lives thinking that death is a remote event. "Felix trembled and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee." (Acts 24:25.) As far as we know from Acts, Felix and Paul never saw one another again. Felix’s convenient season never came.

Paul. "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Phil. 1:21.)

Jesus. "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." (John 8:51.) "I am the resurrection and life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25-26.)

John. "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:4.)

Solomon. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it." (Eccl. 12:7.)

Nicolas Berdyaev, a Russian philosopher. "Death is the most profound and significant fact of life, raising the least of mortals above the mean commonplaces of life. The fact of death alone gives true depth to the question of life. Life in this world has meaning just because there is death.

"We have in life the experience of death, though not the final experience of it. And we cannot be reconciled to death---to the death neither of human beings nor of animals, plants, things or houses. The striving for eternity of all that exists is the essence of life. . . The higher and more complex a being is, the more it is threatened with death.

"The moral paradox of life and of death can be expressed by a moral imperative: treat the living as though they were dying and the dead as though they were alive; i.e., always remember death as the mystery of life and always affirm eternal life in life and in death.

"In this world man is a mortal being. But he is conscious of the Divine image and likeness in him and feels that he belongs not only to the natural world, but to the spiritual world as well. Man regards himself, therefore, as belonging to eternity and yearns for eternity.

"Faith in immortality is a comfort and makes life less hard, but it is also a source of terror and an overwhelming responsibility. Those who are convinced that there is no immortality know nothing of this responsibility. It would be more correct to say that the unbelievers rather than the believers make life easy for themselves. Unbelief in immortality is suspicious just because it is so easy and comforting; the unbelievers comfort themselves with the thought that in eternity there will no judgment of meaning over their meaningless lives. The extreme, unendurable terror is not the terror of death but of judgment and of hell. It does not exist for the unbelievers, only the believers know it. . . The problem of death inevitably leads to that of hell. Victory over death is not the last and final victory. Victory over death is too much concerned with time. The last, final and ultimate victory is victory over hell. It is wholly concerned with eternity." (The Destiny of Man, "Death and Immortality," chapter one, 249-265.)

One of the most misused and misunderstood passages about death is Psalm 116:15. It reads: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." The normal comments go something like this: God counts it a precious, good thing, wonderful moment, when a saint dies. Then a reference is made to Revelation 14:13--- "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord."

In contrast, there are the wicked who die. Ezekiel wrote, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (33:11.) Some interpret Psalm 116:15 as being opposite to Ezekiel 33:11. Since God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, he does have pleasure in the death of the righteous.

What’s being confused here is death and what comes after. It is a blessed thing for the righteous when they die because of what awaits them, but such is not the case with the wicked. But concerning death itself, God takes no pleasure in it for either saint or sinner. Death is not a precious or good thing in God’s sight for anyone!

In fact, in Psalm 116 the person is being delivered from death. This is a psalm of praise to God for deliverance from death. This person may be Hezekiah who was given 15 more years to live. (Isaiah 38:5.) Note Psalm 116: "The sorrows of death compassed me. . then I called upon the name of the Lord. . For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling. . I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." (vs. 1-9.)

"Precious" means that it is a costly thing for the saints of God to die. He is reluctant to give them up to death. "The death of his saints is no trifling matter with God; He does not lightly suffer it to come about." (Psalms, Keil-Delitzsch, 219.) It is a costly process to let saints die; their service is lost; their praises are hushed; their complete personalities are in abeyance until the resurrection. How incalculable is the price which Jehovah is paying by permitting so many generations of his saintly ones to die! (Psalms, Rotherdam and DeWelt, 256.)