Lessons from the Illness / Death of Jake Vander Wiele

Introduction: The Purpose of This Sermon

0:05 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, July 10th, 1988, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Those of you who are members of this assembly and others of you who make it your regular place of worship are very conscious that we are committed as the ordinary course of the means ordained of God for optimum edification to expound the word of God consecutively, that is, to preach right through large segments, whole books, and chapters of the word of God. And a couple of weeks ago we completed our preaching through the Gospel of Mark to the end of the 13th chapter, and God willing, next Lord's Day morning, we will pick up our consecutive expositions in the following days.

1:08 But for approximately nine months, a very vital part of our life as a congregation has been a sustained concern for weekly reports concerning and frequent, fervent prayers in conjunction with our brother Jake Vanderweel, whom the Lord was pleased to teach. And with the knowledge and full consent of Jake's widow, our dear sister, Jean, I wish to take up this morning a very practical and pastoral subject in the light of the extent to which this whole ongoing trial has been a part of our congregational experience, and the subject is, vital lessons to be learned from the lengthy trial of Jake's illness and his subsequent death a few days ago. If you are visiting among us, in a sense you are privileged to sit in the inner, intimate family parlor

2:33 as the people of God at Trinity seek by the grace of God to learn those vital lessons, which God has been teaching us, and which I trust he will continue to teach us in days to come. And I repeat, lest any think we are engaging in a discipline of glorifying men, that is not my purpose. Lest any think that we are being insensitive I remind you that it is, with the full consent and good will of God, of Jake's widow that I set these things before you this morning, that in a sense we as a congregation may do what many of us witnessed yesterday morning when we laid the earthly remains of our beloved brother in the ground awaiting the day of resurrection to carry in our breasts the memories of his life, to cherish those memories, but to press on to lay hold of that which is yet before us while we are in the land of the living.

3:53 So similarly, we as a congregation, having borne in the providence of God this lengthy trial, and having now sought to enter in, and through the grief and the pain and the grief and the grief and the grief and the grief and the grief and the grief and the pain of that final severance before the day of resurrection, we need spiritually and emotionally to glean the lessons that are to be learned, and then, forgetting the things that are behind, to press on to that which is before us. And realizing the delicate nature of these matters, the unusual pressure they will bring upon the heart of some, let us pray that God by the Spirit will draw near and teach us that we may learn well the lessons. I believe the Scriptures clearly teach that God intends we should learn, and that we may be better men and women, and a more godly and useful congregation as a result of our meditations this morning. Let us again seek the help of God, and the aid of Almighty God.

5:13 Our Father, we have been very conscious of your presence with us, as together we have praised you as the living God, as together we have magnified our Savior as the great shepherd of his people, as together we have sought your grace and blessing upon your servants. So now we come and ask that every dimension, every dimension of grace needed in this hour, will be imparted both to your servant and to your people, and especially to the grieving loved ones, that together we may learn lessons that we will never forget, but that will make us better servants of Christ, as we press on to that hour when we too shall join the spirits of Christ. Amen. Amen. To the just made perfect. Hear us and help us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Lesson 1: The Uncertainty of Life and Certainty of Death

6:24 Now, as time permits, I do want to lay before you seven very basic lessons that God, I believe, has been teaching us as a congregation through the lengthy trial of Jake's bout with the illness that became God's. The first lesson, I believe, is this. Jake's experience has vividly underscored for all of us the truth of the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. With respect to the former, the uncertainty of life, the Scripture tells us in the Bible that the uncertainty of life is the truth of life. The truth of life is the certainty of death. The truth of God's deliverance from death to visit heavens and heavens. Nope. So he's an preacher of

7:20 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 where to place it,

8:08 and went ahead of him sanding areas in the planks and in the beams that had been stained and needed to be prepared for his professional touch, when for three weeks I was a coolie here doing common laboring work with Jake as my boss, and one day that man, with his vigor, feeling some physical discomfort in his hip and thinking perhaps there was some arthritis or some other relapse, relatively insignificant malady, went to a doctor's office only to be told within a short time that his body was infected with cancer. Little did he know on that morning that he went for his doctor's appointment, thinking there was some relatively minor physical problem, that in a sense God was handing him the stone. That in a short time, his earthly life would be over. And when the scripture says, do not boast thyself of tomorrow, for you know not what a day may bring forth, that is not a carnal scare tactic.

9:33 That is not God condescending to carnal means of emotional manipulation. Dear men and women, boys and girls, and everyone in between, 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.

10:18 None of us knows this morning what kind of genetic time bomb is ticking within us, that within a week will explode in some serious illness that will take us from the land of the living before this year is over. Who of us knows what man may even now, be filling his belly with beer and booze to be God's instrument to cause a car to come over a center line and hit us dead on. And we will lie on the slab in the morgue before this day is over.

11:07 Do not boast of tomorrow, for neither you nor I knows what a day may bring forth. Amen. And our brother Jake's experience has vividly underscored that basic truth of Scripture. But it has also underscored the parallel truth, not only the uncertainty of life, but the certainty of death.

11:39 And here the simple text that many of us have heard many times over comes and once again speaks, speaks, speaks, speaks its message. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 27. And as it is appointed unto men once to die. It is pointed unto men.

12:12 All of you within the sound of my voice, young and old, fit the category of mankind. You are men. You are women, boys, girls. And the text says it is appointed unto us once to die.

12:33 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'm sorry, so and so, but I've had an unusual amount of emergency patients. I have no time for you tomorrow.

13:32 I must cancel that appointment. Please call me the first of next week and we'll reschedule it. Furthermore, a few hours before, you may call and say to the dentist or say to his secretary or whoever handles his appointments, I'm sorry, we've had an emergency in the home or I've come down sick. Or the car is broken down and in the shop.

13:56 I must cancel the appointment. These bilateral appointments can be unilaterally canceled. But my friend, listen. When it says it is appointed unto men once to die, that is a unilateral and an inviolable appointment.

14:17 Almighty God makes it in his sovereignty, and no one can, and no one can break it.

14:26 Furthermore, only God has the appointment.

14:33 And it's sealed full of his.

14:41 There is no man with enough wealth to bribe God to peek into his appointment book to see the day and the hour of his death. There is none with enough strength to wrench it from the hand of God and to force his eyes upon that appointment. The appointment book, my friends sitting here this morning, again, this is not psychological manipulation. This is not a carnal scare tactic.

15:14 It is an undeniable fact. It is appointed unto men once to die. And people die before they ever are taken from their mother's breast. People die before they ever become toddlers.

15:33 People die before they ever come to puberty. People die before they ever come to adulthood. People die in the flush and vigor of their youth. People die in the maturity and wisdom of middle years.

15:49 People die when they are old and decrepit and tottering. Men die of all ages in all circumstances. And every single death is according to, according to God's own unilateral, secret, sovereign appointment.

16:14 And how vividly the homegoing of our brother Jake has underscored that. When the initial news came of the seriousness of his illness, we thought God's appointment book surely had a date of just a couple of months. But what did God do? Each time it seemed that our brother would be running his last lap, God gave him a reprieve.

16:41 And the reports were encouraging. And there was a fresh flush of life. And we rejoiced. And in our prayer meetings, at times, we could barely keep from shouting and dancing that God had answered our prayers.

16:57 And when we thought the last trip into the hospital or the next one was the last, we'd hear he was back at home. And we'd visit him in his home and sit at his table and speak. And we'd hear him say, and open the word and have Bucky together.

17:15 And yet, when it was God's time,

17:20 the angel of death came and took our brother and landed him upon the bosom of Jesus.

17:30 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.

18:02 You'd sit there in shock and horror. My friend, can you begin to conceive what a preacher of the gospel feels when sinners play perpetual Russian roulette? Every day you live and pillow your head unconverted. You flip the chamber and pull the trigger and breathe the sigh of relief and say, ah, missed it again.

18:39 But my friend, one day God will see to it that the chamber holds the instrument of death. And when God sends the messenger of death and his hands are wrapped about your head, you'll see that the chamber holds the instrument of death. And life begins to ebb. There is no arguing.

19:08 There is no bargaining. There is no bribing. When death is sent by a sovereign God, death accomplishes his mission. And your soul will make its way into the presence of just men made perfect and into the immediate presence of Jesus.

19:29 Make its way into the company of the doomed and of the damned, awaiting the day of resurrection when that soul will be joined to a body. And body and soul will be cast into hell.

19:48 Our brother's experience is vividly underscored for us. The uncertainty of life joined to the certainty of death. And you say, Pastor Martin, what practical effect should that have upon me? Simply this, my unconverted friend, my unsaved young man, boy or girl, listen to me.

20:13 Take the straightest route to get prepared for whatever the day may hold and for the hour and day of your death. Take the straightest route to be prepared for the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death. And you know what that route is? It is the route of immediate, deep and thorough repentance.

20:44 It is the route of turning from your sin and your pride and your worldliness and your preoccupation with your body and your box and your own ambitions. And it means to cast the whole weight of your soul upon Jesus Christ as offered in the gospel, reposing upon Him your soul in all of its nakedness and held deservingness in all of its native undone-ness. Take the straight route of repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus. You have no time to make detours into self-reformation. While making your detour with life's uncertainty and death's certainty, you may die in a detour. Do not detour into a path of self-reformation. Do not detour into a path of mere empty religion.

21:50 Do not make a detour into a path of experimentation with this or the other. Make a straight path to God in repentance and faith.

Application for Believers: A Good Conscience

22:04 And dear children of God, it speaks a word to us as well in the name of Jesus Christ. In the light of the uncertainty of our lives and the certainty of our death, accepting those who remain and are alive at the coming of the Lord, my counsel to you is take the straightest route to a good conscience toward God and man and stay on that route at any cost. Take the straightest route to having a good conscience toward God and man and stay on that route at any cost.

22:46 Life is uncertain, my friend. And in the midst of the busyness of making money, pursuing your career, pursuing your own personal goals and ambitions, the gnawing consciousness that your priorities are messed up, that you've got your belly ahead of your soul, you've got your reputation and the accumulation of things ahead, of laying up treasures in heaven, those things may not haunt you in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the pursuit of them. But my friend, if you were told tomorrow that you had a dread disease that would put you on your back and most likely in three months take your life,

23:32 what comfort would you find in those things that are now so important to you?

23:40 Take the straightest route to getting a good conscience,

23:44 getting settled with God, the matter of pride, priorities, the matters of a good conscience, keeping short accounts with God, keeping your priorities ordered by the Word of God, living in the Spirit, being full of the Spirit, a conscience void of offense to God and to man? What accounts would you want to settle with what relatives and with what fellow church members if you knew that before nightfall, you'd be in the presence of your Savior?

24:22 You see, in the light of the uncertainty of this life and the certainty of death, it is a call to every unconverted person to take a straight route to get right with God. And it is a call to every believer to walk the path of a conscience void of offense to God and man at any cost. Acts 24.16 Paul said, In the light of the coming of the day of judgment, herein do I exercise myself to have at all time a conscience void of offense to God and to man.

Lesson 2: God Uses Strange Means to Accomplish Glorious Ends

25:07 But now I must hasten to the second lesson that I believe God is teaching us through this experience.

25:16 Jake's experience underscores the fact that God uses strength as a strange means to accomplish glorious ends.

25:29 God uses strange means to accomplish glorious ends.

25:38 Romans 8.28 many of you can quote it by memory says, And we know there is no doubt, there is no uncertainty, there is no equivocation, and we know that all things, work together for good to them that love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. Think back over the past months. What are some of the things that have been brought to bear upon our brother who has left us?

26:19 That horrible, abnormal multiplication of deadly cancers. All things.

26:30 Cancer cells. All things are working together for good. Radical chemotherapy with its shock upon the human system. All things.

26:57 Radiation. All things. Raised hopes. Dashed hopes.

27:06 Unfulfilled longings. All things together for good. Although the scripture tells us that man's days are three score and ten and by reason of strength four score our brother was cut off humanly speaking prematurely at age sixty-one and everything that conspired to take him from us. What does the word of God say?

27:43 All things are working together for good and God is teaching us afresh that he uses strange means to accomplish glorious ends. Who among us who has been a part of this nine months of living with this trial would say that this is not a more tender-hearted, more prayerful, more compassionate, more caring, understanding congregation than it's ever been before? A relatively young, young congregation. This is the first time someone who is not unusually elderly has been afflicted with a terminal illness that has taken them away in a relatively short time. There was one other instance of a young woman having not even reached what we'd say the prime of her life. All the lessons we have learned when we have pleaded and we've asked God if it would please him to bring healing, and when it appeared healing had come, yet God kept us from the fanaticism of declaring

29:01 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 supportedness in our dear sister Jean, so that her husband's testimony is, she has been my bulwark of strength through this lengthy trial, and when my faith wanes, it is she who brings the word of God to me. You see, God has used strange means to accomplish glorious ends. He is the God who uses a hard-hearted pharaoh to get his people crying for deliverance out of Egypt.

30:20 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 damned. Oh, do you see how God has been teaching us this lesson? Jake's experience and our sharing in it has underscored the fact that God uses strange means to accomplish glorious ends. And what does that say to us by way of practical application?

31:36 Well, it says this, surely it says this,

31:42 Blind unbeliever. Unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.

32:02 The clouds you so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessing on your head.

Lesson 3: The Great Concern of Spiritually Healthy Parents for Their Children's Salvation

32:16 And then there is a third lesson God is teaching. When will our light be seen? It is a lesson for us through the home-going and the previous lengthy trial of our dear brother. And it is this, Jake's experience underscores the great concern of every spiritually healthy parent for his children.

32:37 Now hear my words carefully.

32:41 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.

33:29 He said those words, it's almost a verbatim quote, For you see, a spiritually healthy man or woman does not have as his primary goal for his children their physical health, their physical prosperity, or even the privilege of seeing them come to maturity and be married and have a job and a wife and children. No! He would rather go to his grave prematurely and know that he shall meet his progeny in heaven, redeemed by the blood of Christ.

34:10 And I ask you parents here, are you spiritually healthy?

34:17 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 in the Savior, that you would have understanding, that you would have a new heart, and you would have a new record, that you would be a bond slave and a lover of Jesus, I would sooner have the worms eat me in a week than live to be a hundred years, see you grow up beautiful, healthy, successful, married, having lovely children, and then at the end be damned and go to hell. That question. I challenge you to go home and look your kids in the eye and say,

35:41 say it and see if they drop their heads convinced you mean it or whether they have a cynical look and laugh in your face.

35:55 I challenge you to look at your sons whose shoulders are beginning to broaden into manhood. Look them in the eye and say, Son, I don't care if you're wealthy. I don't care if you merely make a subsistence existence. Barely can keep soul and body together.

36:19 I don't care if you live and die without a dime in your passbook. But, son, I will go to my grave a broken-hearted man if you're not in Christ. Come on, Dad. I challenge you to do it.

36:39 I'm serious. I'm just...

36:40 God knows if I could, I'd come out of this pulpit this morning and starting with Bill, the first dad to my left, I'd go through this congregation and I'd ask every one of you, dads, in the name of God, I challenge you to go home and take your boys by the shoulders and say what I've just said. Take your daughters by the shoulders, especially those who've begun to flower into womanhood and say to them, Yes, it's evident you're becoming an attractive young woman and it's quite evident that you're conscious of it and you spend your hours putting on your eyes and putting on your face, but I don't see...

37:24 You spend five minutes seeking the Lord and the beauty of the righteousness of Christ, my daughter, my dear one. You want to send your dad to his grave with a broken heart. Go on as you are.

37:43 I'll tell you a great lesson that the experience of our departed brother teaches us is that a spiritually healthy parent longs for the salvation of his children at any.

38:09 Some of your children aren't convinced that that's your highest ambition for them and rightfully so because for fear of losing their affection, you've compromised standards in your home and some of you men know it. You've paired off the right angles of parental standards for fear your kids will turn against you. You'd rather keep their approval and help them their way to hell. Then as Pastor Blaze reminded us this morning, be the kind of man who can say with holy love, here are the standards of this home.

38:49 If you're too big for your britches to keep them, there's the door. If your heart's in the world, you're not going to impart the world into this home. You want to look like a harlot? Go out and join them.

39:03 But don't bring harlotry into this home in the way you dress, in the way you paint, in the way you carry yourself.

39:14 That's harsh, is it?

39:19 I don't speak as a novice and I don't speak as a man who didn't have to put my mouth in my home where it is in this pulpit.

39:36 I know what some of you are thinking. Come on, Pastor, get on the next point, will you? I'm feeling the pressure of this. I pray God you feel it.

39:44 I pray God it'll burn like... until you'll have dignity, God!

39:54 And say I'm going to join the society, the society of the Jake VanderWiels, who'll say I'm willing that I should be ravaged with this dread disease if God can use it to bring my progeny to Jesus.

Lesson 4: Sufficient and Appropriate Grace for Demanding Trials

40:13 But then there is another very vital lesson that God is teaching us through Jake's experience and it's this.

40:22 Jake's experience underscores the truth that sufficient and appropriate grace is given for demanding and diverse trials.

40:39 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.

41:15 There was brought into his life what he calls a messenger of Satan to buffet him. We don't know what it is. Commentators speculate, theologians speculate, and when they're all done you just have a mass of speculation. But one thing is clear.

41:35 This unusual, and demanding trial that came upon him was one concerning which he felt, I can't do the will of God with this unusual and demanding trial in my life, whatever it was. So what did he do? He said, only one thing to do. I've got to do the will of God, so I've got to pray God will remove the what?

42:02 The unusual and demanding trial so what did he do? He prayed. He says in chapter 12 and verse 7, by reason of this exceeding revelation there was given a messenger of Satan to buffet me, verse 8, concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me. He had one focus in his prayers.

42:34 His prayer was, Oh God, and I wonder if there's some significance in the thrice. Is this a parallel to Gethsemane?

42:45 Was it an agony that brought him into fellowship with Gethsemane as perhaps nothing else did? You see, in Gethsemane the Lord said, if it be possible, let it pass, let it pass, let it pass, let it pass. Here were three seasons of intense, concentrated, earnest petition for this thing I besought, the Lord thrice. That doesn't mean he prayed three little, now I lay me down to sleep prayers on three successive nights.

43:18 They were probably days of prayer and fasting and pleading with God, saying, God, this thing, whatever it is, it's a diverse trial of such difficulty I've never encountered. There's no way I can do Your will with this trial, Lord. Remove it. And the heavens were silent and the trial was present.

43:40 And the impediment was felt. And so he went back again and said, Lord, I can't go on. Remove it. I implore You to remove it.

43:50 And the heavens were silent and the trial remained. And the impediment was there. But after the third time, God says, no, there's another part of the equation, Paul, that you have been ignorant of. Look at it.

44:06 My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. In other words, the Paul who had known the grace of God in its glorious manifestation in forgiving a murderer and a blasphemer and one injurious to the cause of Christ, the one who had known grace to face shipwreck and lashing and scourging and imprisonment, he had proven the manifold grace of God, but now here was a new and difficult circumstance and what did it need? It needed a new and sufficient manifestation of the grace of God. And that's exactly what God gave him. And once he did, he said, Lord, there's a new factor in the equation now. No longer do I look at the trial and say, if the trial remains, I cannot serve You.

45:08 Now, he said, the trial remains in order that I might serve You. 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. So if this messenger keeps me humble and keeps me dependent and your grace will support me and keep me strong, then, Lord, we're going to get on well together. That's the great lesson.

45:41 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 will of necessity land me in the presence of the Lord, my righteousness. If anyone would have told me that I would hear that man say as I sat at his bedside and in his home, his face almost glowing like an angel, Pastor, Pastor, I wonder what it will be like when I look upon my Savior. I tell you, I almost danced for joy. It wasn't the mournful wail, Oh, Pastor, I'm so unworthy.

47:00 Can I ever hope? Can I ever think? It was, Pastor, what will happen the moment my spirit leaves my body? Will I immediately see the Savior?

47:12 What will it be like to see him? And he knew! And there was certainty! What happened?

47:19 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.

47:53 But what has God done? The special trial has come special grace to give to our sister grace to this lengthy trial with dignified, queenly, Christian, and we say, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be praise and honor and glory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

48:20 Oh, dear people, hasn't God taught us that lesson? Doesn't your heart say amen to it? This is the lesson God is teaching us. Why?

48:32 So that when you face that next trial you've never faced before, don't shrink back and say, Lord, I can't cope! What you do is say, Lord, hear her! To display a new dimension of the many-sided grace of God. Lord, hear!

48:53 There is a new backdrop against which to cause the diamond of your grace to sparkle as you turn it and show us another facet of its deep blue brilliance that shines tinged with even the blood of the Savior. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with us give him his own son? Give us all things. Would he send his son to die for Jake and Gene and then not give them grace for this lengthy trial?

Lesson 5: A Healthy Church Functions as a Living Body

49:38 Unfigured! My friend, he has not sent his son to die for you and me and then shortchange us of any element of grace needed for any new trial and new difficulty. And then I hasten to underscore our time is getting away, so quickly, that Jake's experience underscores the truth that a healthy church functions as a living body. A healthy church functions as a living body.

50:21 And the best text I know that expresses this is 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 26. Hear the word of God where Paul is likening the church to a body, the very body of Christ and drawing analogies between the function of the human organism, the human body and the spiritual body of Christ. Listen. Verse 26.

50:46 And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. But now you are the body of Christ and severally members, for which you are bones of the body of Christ. For you have been brought into the body of Christ.

51:07 You have come to this world to deliver the spirit of the Holy Spirit from the grave of death to the life of Christ. Why have you not stayed in the life of Christ who is nothing but a body of Christ? Why do you not desire the truth of Christ? Why is it that you want to tell the truth in your mind to the flesh so that the life of Christ is everything in the flesh?

51:25 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 comes to the fore. That part of the body that needs to act to turn on the faucet, to run it under the cold water, to squeeze off the blood supply, that part that runs to the medicine chest, that gets the little gauze and wraps it around and puts the tape upon it, what happens? The whole body responds to the need of any one of its parts. And surely this nine month experience that we have shared together in conjunction with you. With our brother, Jake's lengthy illness and his home going has underscored the truth that a healthy body, a healthy church, I'm sorry, functions as a living body. Now hear

52:45 me carefully. I didn't say a small church or a large church, for it has nothing to do with size. It has to do with health. There are people who say, oh, well, churches get big and they get distant.

53:02 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 to carry out the water and be the water boy for those dudes. One of them might turn around and accidentally bump me and I'd go clean off the other side of the field. I mean, big, big, I mean, big,

54:05 big. I tell you, when they're healthy, that whole thing functions as a body. The nerves, the muscles, the blood flow courses through all six foot seven, all 285 pounds. You see, it's a healthy body and it's a healthy church where Christ is the head and the members are full of the spirit and where the graces of Christ are suffused through that body that when one member suffers, the whole body suffers.

54:39 The whole body suffers. The whole body responds. When I called our dear sister this morning to get her confirmation on speaking this way, she spontaneously said, oh, express to the people how conscious we've been of their love, their support, their concern, their compassion. What's happened? One member has suffered and the whole body has responded. And though we are far from a perfect church, by the grace of God, we are a healthy church. Now, listen to me. There's been a direct relationship between the response of the body to Jake and Jean and the family and their need and the faithful application of the discipline of those who are immoral, those who are disaffected, those who are uncommitted. You see, you cannot

55:38 let slide the sins that are the biblical occasion. You can't 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 the Holy Ghost has been grieved is suddenly going to throb with the life-giving power of Christ-impelled love. It just doesn't happen. My friend, the only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God.

56:12 The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God.

56:16 The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God.

56:22 The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God.

Lesson 6: The Glory and Privilege of Being a Child of God in Life and Death

56:27 The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. The only way we'll remain a compassionate body is through the love of God. And then my final point is this. We are to learn from this experience. Jake's experience underscores the glory and the privilege of being a child of God in life and in death.

56:51 Jake's experience underscores the glory and the privilege of being a child of God in life and in death. You see, the world pities us. Those poor religious nuts. They don't booze it up. They don't get high.

57:19 They don't know what it is to live the life of liberty in which marital vows are taken. With a grain of salt, I mean they conscientiously give 10% plus of their income to the work of God. It means they can't have fancy vacations. They send their kids to religious fanatic schools where the Bible governs all their disciplines.

57:45 And the money they spend to send their kids to those schools, they don't take vacations. They drive old jalopies. I've even seen them get their clothes at the thrift shop. I even saw their preacher years ago get his suits at the thrift shop.

58:00 The 30 jokes. They don't think the television programs are funny. They actually think the soap operas are immoral and pornographic. I mean they are a mounted bunch. What fun is that?

58:23 They pity us. They pity us.

58:29 Sly thinking destroyed our joy.

58:37 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.

58:56 And when he was in the room when the medical examiner pronounced our brother dead, that the spirit had separated the body,

59:06 this individual who's a member of our church said to me yesterday, Pastor, we in this business get hard to death. We get hard to death and to dying. It's our life. But he said, But I saw that doctor who signed the death certificate moved.

59:23 He said, I've never seen anything like it in my life. I never saw a man face death with such confidence and resignation. I never saw a man face death with such confidence and resignation. It is said, I believe, of the old Huguenots, they die well.

59:46 Oh, my friend, listen to me. Listen to me. The experience of our departed brother teaches us and underscores the glory and privilege of being a child of God in life and in death. And I know of no text that sums it up better.

60:04 You've already guessed my text. For to me to live.

60:13 Now, what's that mean? I have his righteousness to cover my sin. I have his almighty arm to support me in my weakness. I have his righteousness to support me in my weakness.

60:22 I have his righteousness to support me in my weakness. I have his presence to cheer me. I have his love to warm me. I have his grace and his promise to guide me.

60:32 Oh, I don't want to get started down that road. We'll be here till two o'clock. For to me to live is Christ. Pity me?

60:40 Pity me? When the Savior is mine and I am his and I am blessed with all spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? Pity me? Oh, no, my friend.

60:52 Envy me. Oh, no, my friend. All you've got is a handful of sawdust. All you've got is gilded dung.

61:00 That's what you feed upon.

61:05 And sprayed corruption, perfumed garbage. We feed on angels' bread. We feed upon him who is the bread of life. We feed upon him who is our life.

61:19 For me to live is Christ. The knowledge of his grace. The joy of his fellowship. The confidence of his forgiveness.

61:28 And there's another part of the text. You know it. And to die is gain. What gain?

61:36 I leave immediately all the remains of corruption in my soul. All the deadness. All the dullness. All the distraction.

61:46 All the affinity for the unclean and the impure and the unloving and the ungracious. The moment my spirit...

61:56 God puts forth an almighty energy that he's been parceling out in living. Little bits and pieces from the time he saved me. He put forth a burst when he saved me and broke the reign of sin. And then he puts forth little bits and pieces all along the way in the agonizing process of progressive sanctification.

62:17 But the moment I die, he puts forth the full energy of his grace and every last act of sin will be removed from my departing spirit when it leaves this body. And by the time it gets into...

62:32 into the presence of Jesus, it is called the spirit of a just man made perfect.

62:38 Pity me? When that's all death can do? Is chase me up to heaven perfect? And what do I leave behind?

62:47 This old carcass. With a slit up the back where the doctor had to go in and pluck out part of the disc.

62:57 The tennis elbow. Not from playing tennis, but from shaking God's people's hands so hard so for many years the old elbow said, you need to get the...

63:07 seven before you keep that up. So every Lord's Day is an exercise of pain when I shake your hand and leave that behind.

63:17 When I go out to run to keep the blubber off my belly so I can still preach with some credibility when I talk about temperance and eating.

63:25 When I'm down pushing the weights to try to keep a little muscle tone so I can at least have the respect of my wife and my kids and my grandchildren and those that look to me in leadership. And it hurts and it's agony and I'm out running with my brother Ashiel. I say, brother, some people talk about runner's high. The only high I get is when I'm home and say, I'm glad that's over with.

63:47 That's right. I don't get runner's high. I get runner's ache.

63:52 After the first half mile I'm talking to myself, you dumb old fool, what in the world are you doing? At age 54 you paid your dues. You've got nothing to prove now. Go ahead and take it easy.

64:03 Nobody's going to be mad at you. If you develop a little punch they'll say you've earned it. What do I leave behind? What the body calls, what the scripture calls the body, the body of humiliation.

64:17 Humiliated with scars from surgery. With tendons that can't even take greeting God's people heartily week in and week out.

64:29 Pity me? I'm going to leave that behind. And then God's going to watch over every particle of it. And then one day the voice of the archangel and the trump of God.

64:41 And God's going to gather all those particles together. And He's going to do something. I don't know how He's going to do it. But there ain't going to be no tennis elbow.

64:48 I'm going to be able to, shake the hands two at a time, and hug all the saints for eternity, and never once get tendinitis. Think of it. Think of it. Never once.

64:57 No weariness. Go off on every errand to which my savior sends me and be as refreshed when I come back as when I left. Even if it has to be performed in Mars or Jupiter. I'll come back refreshed.

65:12 No weariness, no sickness, no crying, no tears, no pain. Pity me? Oh no, my friend. To die is a sin.

65:20 Oh, if God is teaching us anything through the homegoing of our brother, you who stood at the graveside yesterday, wasn't it glorious to suck sweetness from the words, the dead in Christ shall rise? Wasn't it precious to stand as we saw the earthly remains about to be lowered in the ground and say, the dead in Christ. Go to that plot of ground and say, plot of ground, you don't know it. But there's going to be, there's going to be a rumbling and a shaking some day.

65:59 And you're going to give up. You're captive.

66:05 Oh, I hope I'm making some of you jealous to get saved.

66:10 Pity us? No, my friend. The experience of our brother and that which we've shared with him underscores the glory and the privilege of being a child of God in life. And in.

Concluding Exhortation and Prayer

66:30 Well, I say those are six very vital lessons that God has taught us. And I close with the earnest entreaty. If you don't know the God of our brother Jake,

66:45 go to him in the way he had to go and the way I had to go and the way each one of us who knows him had to go in all your nakedness, in all your undone-ness, in all your lostness and say, Oh God, I don't understand the one thousandth part of my sin, but I know there's enough sin to damn me to hell a thousand times over. But you've sinned. You've said, and though I can't comprehend it all, you've said that your dear son died for sinners and he welcomes the vilest of sinners. He welcomes sinners as sinners.

67:18 He doesn't welcome them as seeking sinners, as earnest sinners. He just welcomes them as sinners. Lord, I qualify. I own that I'm a sinner.

67:27 And Jesus is a mighty Savior. And run to Christ. Run to Christ. And dear children of God, isn't it about time some of you stopped your, your piddling around with holiness?

67:41 Piddling around with a life of serious discipleship? Isn't it about time you reared back on your hind legs and roared a thump to your flesh and said from henceforth, I want to live in such that if tomorrow morning the doctor tells me you've got three weeks to live, I don't have any catching up to do, just a little last-minute tidying up. That's all. No catching up.

68:14 Just a little bit of tidying up. That's what God said through the prophet. Put your house in order for you're about to die. He didn't say go build it.

68:22 He said just put it in order. Tidy things up. You're going on a long journey and you ain't coming back. My friend, if tomorrow brought the news of your soon death, would you have to scurry about doing lots of tidying up?

68:42 Would you have to scurry about changing a lot of things? Catching up? Or my question, I'm sorry, was, would you have to do more than a little tidying up?

68:54 You say, Pastor, when you ask questions like that, that gets me uncomfortable. Well, that's probably a good index that you're just the one who needs the question. You say, you know, that's what people must mean when they say the ministry in this place is negative and oppressive and overbearing. Yes, that's exactly what they mean.

69:12 They mean you can't live comfortably in your sin around here. And you can't live comfortably with a lower standard of discipleship than is taught in this book. And the day anyone can, may God stupefies the conscience and takes people to hell self-deceived. It took a radical death upon the cross to procure salvation.

69:44 And it's only radical discipleship in obedience and love of Jesus that will take us to heaven in the blessing of that salvation. And my friend, if you don't want that, what you're saying is, I want to go to heaven another way. Well, you'll have to make it. But I've got news for you.

70:00 God won't. Oh, may the Lord lay the issues upon our hearts. And may we be wise. And may the years to come cause us to bless God again and again that everything pertaining to the long trial, to the home going, and this morning's reflection in conjunction with our brother Jake indeed was working together for our good and to God's glory.

70:34 Amen. I tell you, dear people, if I didn't have a Bible that taught things like this, I wouldn't stay in the ministry for another minute. I'd quit. But when it teaches things like this and we can face the grim realities of death in the world to come with this kind of confidence, I'd beg and pay for the privilege of preaching.

70:57 This is a glorious salvation. If you don't have it in the Savior, make a straight line to Him this morning and seek Him. While He may be found. Let us pray.

71:16 Our Father, what thanks can we render unto You for so great a salvation. We are so thankful that in the midst of all of the ugliness and the pain and the grief of sickness, death and the grave, we sorrow not as those who have no hope. Thank You for what our Savior means to us in life. What He will be to us in death.

71:47 What He will be to us in the day of resurrection. But Lord, our hearts are heavy this morning because there are men and women and boys and girls sitting here who if in Your appointment book had to meet death today, death would land them in hell. Oh God, we take no delight in that thought. Have mercy upon them.

72:12 Lord, if they will not weep for themselves, Lord, if they will not weep for themselves, enable us to weep for them. We pray for fathers who could not look their children in the eye and say, My great, my deep, my passionate longing is above all else for Your salvation. Lord, may the challenge not go unheeded. May they not go out angry and pouting, but humbled and broken and penitent and dare to go home and face their children and be exposed.

72:45 Lord, we pray for them. Lord, we pray for them. Lord, we pray for them. Lord, we pray for them.

72:45 Lord, we pray for them. Lord, we pray for them. Oh Lord, we pray for those who think they cannot go on, who face things they've never faced before. May they this morning know that You've engineered all those circumstances in order to display Your marvelous grace.

73:02 Oh, display it, display it, we pray. Make us all, each in His own little world, a great display case of the manifold grace of our Savior. We thank You, oh God, we thank You for the grace You gave to our brother to face those last days and to die triumphantly. The grace You are giving to his dear wife and widow.

73:30 The grace You are giving to relatives and loved ones, to children and grandchildren. Oh Lord, continue to pour in the oil of consolation and make us all as a people of better people. Because of the home-going of our beloved brother, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.