Lessons from the Illness / Death of Jake Vander Wiele

Driving home: That is stark, naked realism. You and I do not know what a day may bring forth. And surely the lesson that God is underscoring for us through Jake's experience, is the, the truth of the uncertainty of this life.

Martin recounts working with Jake, who was vigorous and healthy, staining beams just months before his diagnosis, highlighting the sudden and unexpected onset of his terminal illness to underscore the uncertainty of life.

God's size. The fond homem written in Proverbs 27 in verse 1, "...boast not thyself of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth."观 mono l'enovo festive semen Catholics are the Easter caller, but this is God's experience of God's rub 발생 on our life. It seems that a few weeks ago, though it was closer to 10 months ago, but as a vigorous The very man whom I was privileged to assist and do his coolie work in the staining of these beams, and I thought of that as I sat here this morning, when we had the high scaffold and I would take my orders from Jake where to push the scaffold and...

7:20 - 8:08 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But my friend, listen. When it says it is appointed unto men once to die, that is a unilateral and an inviolable appointment.

The analogy of a bilateral, cancellable dentist appointment is contrasted with death, which is a unilateral and inviolable appointment made by God, emphasizing the certainty and unalterable nature of death.

And that is an appointment which God reserves to make unilaterally within the bounds of his own righteous sovereignty. It is no bilateral appointment such as you make with your dentist. When the office calls and you are informed that it has been six months since you've been to the dentist and the dentist would like to see you for a checkup, he takes his calendar, you take yours, and there is a bilateral commitment to an appointment at the dentist's office. Furthermore, it's an appointment that can be unilaterally canceled. The dentist may call you the day before. Or the appointment and say, I'...

12:33 - 13:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Take the straightest route to get prepared for whatever the day may hold and for the hour and day of your death. This route is immediate, deep, and thorough repentance, turning from sin and casting your soul upon Jesus C…

Playing Russian roulette is used to illustrate the folly and danger of unconverted sinners living day by day, continually risking eternal damnation, as death could come at any moment.

It is appointed unto men once to die. You'd think me a fool. Were I to take my nine-shot .22 revolver and empty the chamber of all but one shell and in your presence spin that chamber and then pull the trigger and spin it again and pull the trigger and play Russian roulette upon myself.

17:30 - 18:01 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God uses the treachery of Judas, the jealousy of the high priest and the Pharisees, the fickleness of the mob, the heartlessness of Roman soldiers, the gutlessness of Pilate and of Herod, ugly, ugly things, and yet he us…

Examples of God using a hard-hearted Pharaoh and the jealousy of Joseph's brothers are given to demonstrate God's pattern of using 'strange means' (evil or difficult circumstances) to accomplish His glorious redemptive ends.

our brother is healed, we know it, and sending off news releases to the Christian periodicals only to have the name of God shamed when a week or two later we found the cancer had merely been transplanted to another place. What lessons God has taught us in this world. us of how to rejoice in answers to prayer without slipping into fanatical interpretations of those answers, how God has taught us over the long haul anyone with relatively little principled commitment to God can be faithful over the short haul, but over the long haul the way God has drawn out the fortitude of faith and supportedne...

29:01 - 30:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God uses the treachery of Judas, the jealousy of the high priest and the Pharisees, the fickleness of the mob, the heartlessness of Roman soldiers, the gutlessness of Pilate and of Herod, ugly, ugly things, and yet he us…

The treachery, jealousy, fickleness, and heartlessness surrounding Christ's crucifixion are presented as the ultimate example of God using ugly, strange means to bring about the world's greatest blessing: a crucified Savior.

He is the God who uses the insensitive jealousy of Joseph's brothers to sell him as a slave into Egypt in order that he might deliver his people years hence. And my friends, listen, the ultimate expression of this is the cross of our Savior. God uses the cross of our Savior. God uses the treachery of Judas, the jealousy of the high priest and the Pharisees, the fickleness of the mob, the heartlessness of Roman soldiers, the gutlessness of Pilate and of Herod, ugly, ugly things, and yet he uses them to give the world its greatest blessing, a crucified Savior without whose death we'd all be damn...

30:20 - 31:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Go home and look your kids in the eye and tell them that you would rather be afflicted with a dread disease and die prematurely if it meant they would be nested in the Savior, have a new heart, and love Jesus, than for t…

Jake's verbatim quote expressing his willingness to bear his illness again if it would bring his children and grandchildren to Christ illustrates the primary concern of a spiritually healthy parent.

Jake's experience underscores the great concern of every spiritually healthy parent for Greatest children, I heard from the lips of our departed brother with my own ears, If God would use all involved in my illness and in its taking me to my grave to bring the heart of each of my children and grandchildren to the knowledge of Christ, I would gladly bear it again if I had a choice.

32:41 - 33:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Go home and look your kids in the eye and tell them that you would rather be afflicted with a dread disease and die prematurely if it meant they would be nested in the Savior, have a new heart, and love Jesus, than for t…

Martin challenges parents to look their children in the eye and declare their preference for their children's salvation over their physical health or worldly success, testing the spiritual health of the parents.

If you went home today and sat down with each one of your children, if you had glasses, you took them off, got close enough so whether you had astigmatism, nearsighted or farsighted, you could find where their eyeballs were and look right in them. Could you say to your children, and know that it would stick in their conscience, My dear son, my dear daughter, my dear grandson, my dear granddaughter, daddy, granddaddy, mommy, grandma, would sooner be afflicted right now with a dread disease that would take me to my grave in a way that I could not imagine. If I could know that you would be nested...

34:17 - 35:41 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Drawing from Paul's 'thorn in the flesh' in 2 Corinthians 12, Martin illustrates that God provides special, sufficient, and appropriate grace for new and difficult trials, as…

The Apostle Paul's experience with a 'messenger of Satan' (2 Corinthians 12) is used to illustrate that God's grace is sufficient and appropriate for demanding and diverse trials, even when the trial is not removed.

This whole experience has been a marvelous declaration of this truth that sufficient and appropriate grace is given for demanding and diverse trials. And what do I mean by that? Well, the best way I know to illustrate it from the Bible is to turn to that very familiar passage in 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 12. The Apostle Paul had entered into a realm of an experience he had never known before.

40:39 - 41:14 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You can give grace to a man under the buffeting of a messenger of Satan and you can give him grace to rise above it, but you are the God who resists the proud.

Martin recounts Jake's glowing face and confident questions about seeing the Savior, contrasting it with his hyper-Calvinistic background, to show how God gave special grace for unshakable assurance in the face of death.

And I tell you and I must say to God's praise, because this is a family time, if someone would have told me five years ago that a man out of that crippling, hyper-Calvinistic background is our brother Jake, where it's considered the height of arrogance and impiety and presumption to say, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day, coming out of a background in which he has been to say, I know of a certainty that my sins are pardoned for Jesus' sake. I know I have a righteousness that when this soul leaves the body ...

45:41 - 47:00 Read in full sermon

The point: When you face a new trial you've never faced before, do not shrink back and say, 'Lord, I can't cope!' Instead, say, 'Lord, here is a new backdrop against which to display a new dimension of Your many-sided grace.'

Jake's widow, Jean, is presented as a 'monument of God's supportive grace,' demonstrating how God provided special grace for her to bear the lengthy trial with dignity, despite initial apprehensions about her dependence on her husband.

As he faced death and the special grace needed for an unshakable assurance, God came with that special grace. And our beloved sister sits here this morning, a grieving widow, yes, but a monument of God's supportive grace. Those of us who've known our dear sister through the years, we had apprehensions. She leaned upon her husband as a woman should, and we wondered how this long trial would be borne.

47:19 - 47:52 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You see, you cannot let slide the sins that are the biblical occasion of reproof, of admonition, of censure and excommunication in the name of love and then think that in a crisis that kind of a sick body out of which th…

The human body's holistic response to a sliced finger (turning on water, getting gauze, etc.) is used to illustrate how a healthy church, like a living body, responds when one member suffers.

It is not just the body of Christ that causes the death of Christ, but the body of Christ that is above it. impulses of the nerves and everything be limited to that two inch band. Or if you could somehow just lift that part out and put it on the shell. Next time you had a headache, just take that part of your head that's hurting and put it on. No, no. When this organism comes under physical distress, the whole organism responds. The entire organism. When one member suffers, the whole body enters into that suffering. You slice your finger when you're cutting the tomatoes and the whole body come...

51:25 - 52:45 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You see, you cannot let slide the sins that are the biblical occasion of reproof, of admonition, of censure and excommunication in the name of love and then think that in a crisis that kind of a sick body out of which th…

The example of large, healthy professional football players is used to counter the idea that large churches cannot be healthy, emphasizing that health, not size, determines a body's proper functioning.

Everything's mechanical and there's nothing. My friend, listen, I have seen some of these professional football players, six foot seven or eight, 285 pounds of throbbing health, all bone and muscle and sinew. I've seen the Redskins working out in central Pennsylvania at Dickinson College. When I grew up, if you were six feet, 200 pounds, which I was for a number of years, I'm a few less pounds than that now. I'm still six feet. You were considered a big man. I got next to those guys and you talk about inferiority complex. I mean, I just felt like, man, I don't even know if I'd have the courage...

53:02 - 54:05 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The world pities believers, but Philippians 1:21, 'For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,' reveals the profound glory and privilege of having Christ in life and the…

A church member's account of the medical examiner being moved by Jake's confident and resigned death is used to show that the world, which often pities believers, cannot deny the glory of a child of God dying well.

Let me tell you something. They don't pity us when they see us die well. Let me tell you. Let me tell you something that came straight from the lips of one of our members whose job involves caring for those who leave this life.

58:37 - 58:54 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Pity me? When that's all death can do? Is chase me up to heaven perfect? And what do I leave behind? This old carcass.

Martin humorously details his own physical ailments (slit back, tennis elbow, running aches) to illustrate the 'body of humiliation' that believers gladly leave behind at death, which is 'gain'.

This old carcass. With a slit up the back where the doctor had to go in and pluck out part of the disc.

62:47 - 62:54 Read in full sermon