DYING WORDS OF GOD'S SAINTS

"Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.

(Psalm 116:15)

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'I shall be satisfied with Thy likeness. Satisfied!'

Charles Wesley

'I have pain; but I have peace, I have peace!'

Richard Baxter, martyr and theologian 

'My affections are so much in heaven that I can leave you all without a regret; yet I do not love you less, but God more.'

William Wilberforce

'You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men. This is mine; that a life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that anyone can live in this world.'

Matthew Henry 

'Best of all God is with us!'

John Wesley

'For the Christian, the grave itself is but a covered bridge leading from light to light, through a brief darkness.'

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

'For eighty and six years I have been his servant, and He has done me no wrong, and how can I blaspheme my King who saved me?'

Polycarp, disciple of the Apostle John at his martyrdom 

'Lord Jesus I am weary in Thy work, but not of Thy work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, seal the truth, and come home and die.'

George Whitefield, English evangelist

'I am in the happiest pass to which man ever came. Christ is mine, and I am His; and there is nothing now between me and resurrection, except Paradise.'

Samuel Rutherford, Scottish Presbyterian theologian and author

'What I taught with my lips, I seal in my blood.'

John Hus, martyr 

'Live in Christ, and the flesh need not fear death.'

John Knox, leader of the Protestant Reformation

'Our God is the God from whom cometh salvation. God is the Lord by whom we escape death! Into Thy hands I commit my spirit; God of truth, Thou has redeemed me.'

Martin Luther, priest and theologian of the Protestant Reformation

'I am still in the land of the dying; I shall soon be in the land of the living.'

John Newton, former slave trader and hymnist

The following is the memorial message that I gave at the passing of my friend Will. It is written from a dying man to dying men--for this is who we all are in this world of time.

My name is Steve Beier and I am the executive director at Discipleship Inc. I was asked to speak on Will’s Christianity and then pray.

I knew Will for 30 years but in the last 4 we became friends. He made a phone call that started our friendship—it opened a door into his deep desire to know Jesus Christ. He said to me, ‘Steve you are reverent aren’t you?’ I told him that I was a Christian if that is what he meant.

Will knew that there was a God. He knew this because it was obvious to him. The Bible tells us, “For His invisible attributes, namely His Eternal Power and Divine Nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world.” (Romans 1:20)

However, for much of his life he denied this reality—like most all of the world. The Bible reveals this reality to us saying, “… they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 1:25)

Will contemplated the godless world around him … he contemplated what happens when he dies … he pondered a coming Judgment … and he thought long on all his sins.

I believe that this was what led to many of our conversations. Most of our time together was spent contemplating a Christian worldview. Who is Jesus Christ? What is the Bible? What are God’s demands for Heaven?

We talked about His miracles … we talked about Him fulfilling 300 prophecies … we talked about His virgin birth and resurrection from the dead … His claiming to be God … we talked about His atonement for sin on the Cross ... we talked about faith in Him ALONE for salvation.

After one of our breakfasts, while walking to our cars, Will asked me to be his spiritual mentor. I said, ‘Great let’s meet once a month.’ He said, in typical Will fashion, ‘No not that much …’

Will was like the city of Jericho in the Bible, “tightly shut up inside—no one went out and no one went in.” But slowly he started to open up and reveal his heart in the months ahead … this enabled me to share my heart … our friendship now started to blossom.

Soon he started to give to our ministry every month. I could tell that he trusted me and was truly seeking answers to ‘life’s hardest questions.’ He wanted more out of life in his final years than, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor. 15:32) 

He asked questions of the Bible. He read God’s Word and owned a ‘David Jeremiah Study Bible’. I believe that Will saw the Bible as he saw no other book. It was the very Word of God. The expectations that he had in reading it were to meet with the Creator and Sustainer of the world ... and to know Him as a Person … a Person Who had thoughts, desires, and a Moral Code for all life.

His reading led him to consider who was, Jesus of Nazareth? Was Jesus just a secular scholar like Socrates? Was He a political leader that was killed by His own people like Abraham Lincoln? Was He a secular martyr like Martin Luther King Jr?? OR Was He the virgin born Son of God?

I believe it was the latter that Will came to see as the truth. He understood what C. S. Lewis once famously said. 

‘I am trying to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him. ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus Christ as a good moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing that we cannot say. A man who was merely a man and said the things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man saying he was a poached egg—or else the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God—or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon; or else you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.’

If Will were here today, what would he say? I think he would say something like this. 

I believe that ‘Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God … I found Him to be so as I read the Bible regularly. 

I believe I spent much of my life in rebellion against God, not because I had evidence to disprove Jesus Christ … but because I did not want Him to exist … so I could live my life as I wanted!

I think he would say, “I wish I read the Bible more and played tennis and golf less.”

I wish I had a chance to talk to you about my Christian beliefs … I wish others who believe in Jesus would have shared theirs with me.

I wish that I would have had more close friends and invested in others more … not shielded my heart from them and wore a shield over it. 

I wish that I would have spent more time thinking of my eternal soul and less time running from death. 

Let me close with one final thought.

The tennis court put Will and I together as competitors … the gospel of Jesus Christ brought us together as friends. Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” 

I will miss Will … he was my friend!

The following is a text message I sent to a group of friends upon learning of the passing of two of our friends in the past month. 

I write this text with great apprehension and great zeal. My apprehension is that I offend some, my zeal is that we will all one day die.

First it was Bob a month ago … and then Will passed away yesterday. So who of us is next?! One thing is for sure no one gets out of this world alive.

So what happens when we die? How sure are you of your answer? How much time have you spent considering all the answers?

The Bible says, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” We all have a deep and dark past in sin. We tell the stories of the immoralities that we committed in the past and laugh.

The Bible says, “it is a fearful thing to come into the hands of the Living God.” Our stories will not be funny to Him. He is Light and in Him there is no darkness.

None of us will get to heaven by being good enough … or by giving money to charity … or by going to church. We will only get there by faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Heaven and Hell are real. My prayer is that if you don’t believe in Him, that you pursue salvation in the Crucified Christ.

The Word of God says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”

My concern for all who read this text is, ‘Do YOU know Him?’ When you die it will be too late.

Steve