One Breath from Death

I wish you the grace of God and the peace of Christ. It's a delight to be together again.

Does God like it when we die? Recently, that's the question that our six-year-old daughter, Megan, raised as we were traveling. Does God like it when we die?

I realize that questions related to death are very big questions. And questions related to my death are very personal. Why does it happen? What happens to me when I experience it? And how is breath, this involuntary thing that we just do, breathing in and out, how is that related to life?

I'd like us all to take a collective breath right now. I'll count to three, and I'll ask you to breathe in for the count of three after I've counted three. So we'll have two counts of three. And then breathe out for the count of seven. So one, two, three.

One, two, three, breathing in. Now breathing out one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. My understanding is that is a way to help calm oneself and to think about what we're doing. How often do we engage in this act of breathing and don't think about what we're doing?

Bill Bryson, in his book The Body, notes that quietly and rhythmically, awake or asleep, generally without thought, every day, you breathe in and out about 20,000 times, diligently processing some 4,000 gallons or 440 cubic feet of air, depending on how big you are and how active.

That's about 7.3 million breaths between birthdays, 550 million or so over the course of a lifetime. In breathing, as in everything in life, the numbers are staggering, indeed fantastical. He says every time you breathe, you exhale some 25 sextillion. That's 2.5 times 10 to the 22nd power.

Every time you exhale, you exhale some 25 sextillion molecules of oxygen, so many that with a day's breathing, you will in all likelihood inhale at least one molecule from the breaths of every person who has ever lived.

And every person who lives from now until the sun burns out will from time to time breathe in a bit of you. He's not necessarily a believer that I know of. He says at the atomic level, we are, in a sense, eternal.

Isn't it amazing how God has designed us to breathe? Something so simple, something that I rarely think about. It's easy to take breathing for granted.

The title of the message today is One Breath from Death.

One Breath from Death. And my goal may be a bit unrealistic, but I would like us to consider the reality of death in a way that is realistic and encouraging.

I trust this is not an exercise in morbidness or gloominess.

As a student of preaching, I have received the impression over the years that a preacher should not preach the things that he has not experienced.

So in the interest of full disclosure, I will confess to you, I have not experienced death.

I'm preaching more from observation.

This past Monday night, I was with some of the youth guys, and I told them what I was thinking about preaching. And one of them said that death is one of those things that you try not to think about too much. And sometimes when you start thinking about it, it's hard to stop.

So I'm not trying to wreck your Sabbath today. I think we can think about this subject in a way that I trust is helpful and, yes, even encouraging. In fact, in a counterintuitive sense, I believe that when we think about death realistically, it'll help us to enjoy life even more intensely.

And with that, I do have some experience. For whatever reason, I don't know why my mind works this way, but I have spent a good bit of my life thinking about death. And I do consider myself a relatively cheerful person by and large.

Today, I want you to examine death realistically so that you experience life richly. That's my desire, that you would examine death realistically so that you experience life richly. It was the well-known preacher Charles Spurgeon who said, "To be prepared to die is to be prepared to live."

Our opening text, I'd like us to go to Genesis, that foundational book of the Bible, and look at a number of verses in chapter two.

You recall that chapter one talks about the creation of the world, all that God had done. He says it's very good. And then chapter two brings us into some more of that creation story.

I'd like to start with that verse there, verse seven, Genesis chapter two, verse seven. This is the New King James version. And the Lord God formed a man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being, or as I like the King James, a living soul.

God breathes into this pile of dirt, so to speak, and it becomes something really astounding. Verse eight, the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jumping down to verse 15, then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.

For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die."

I think I was seven or eight years old. Our family was living in Northwestern Ontario at the time. And even though my mother is not necessarily an animal person, for some reason, somehow she allowed us to acquire a kitten.

And I don't even know where the kitten came from. We lived in isolation. We had to fly in to be at the community where we lived. So I'm assuming that the kitten was flown in from somewhere. Cute little thing, gray, long hair. And we named it Pussy Willow. It was a girl.

And since the temperatures do get to quite subzero in the wintertime, the cat, which became the kitten became a cat, of course, was allowed inside the house of all things. And I remember many happy hours playing with Pussy Willow. She ended up having a litter of kittens even the one year, and that was especially exciting for us.

When I was 11 or so, we moved home from Ontario, and we brought Pussy Willow with us. But we moved into an apartment in Big Valley, a very small apartment, so no room for cats there. And so we put Pussy Willow at my grandparents' farm.

And that was quite an adjustment for her and for us too.

And I still remember the one morning that my dad called our family together, and he said, "I need to tell you that Pussy Willow was hit and killed on the road last evening." And she was pregnant at the time with another litter. And I guess she couldn't cross the road as quickly as she thought she could, and she was hit and killed.

And any of you who have loved a pet dearly and then either had to have it put down or it died, you know that that's a very difficult thing for 11, 12, 13, even those of us who are 46, 47, 48, when we become attached to something.

The difficulty of death, and that's an animal. I know that many of you in this last year have gone through a very difficult loss, whether it's a parent or a sibling. It's very difficult when there's the loss of a spouse, a friend, a child. That sorrow is magnified many times over.

All of four of my grandparents whom I had the privilege of knowing are now gone. My grandparent I was closest to, my grandfather, passed away with cancer when I was in my 20s. He was 75. But that was over that was almost 20 years ago. And there's still times I wish that I could talk to Grandpa Byler and ask him questions and visit with him. He was one of the greatest conversationalists that I ever knew.

An interesting person because he was interested in people and knew how to ask excellent questions.

As we think about the matter of death this morning, I'd like us to think about it from four different angles. First of all, to consider the mystery of death. What is it? What happens when people die?

Even though every person is subject to it and will go through it, there is so much that we don't know about death. With the exception of two people in all of human history, every one of us will face death.

In fact, as I was thinking about it, I know for some of you, the 1800s sounds like it's way back there. And it is pretty far back there. I was born in the 1900s, so it doesn't seem quite so far. But there is not a person today still living on the earth from the 1800s.

And those of us born in the 1900s are rapidly diminishing. That's how quickly history and life and death move.

For the most part, it is a one-to-one ratio. Someone once said that all the wars and plagues and disasters the world has ever seen have never raised the death toll. It's a one-to-one ratio. Every person who's ever lived has ended up dead. About 120 people die every minute, 7,000 every hour, 170,000 every day.

But those numbers don't get our attention. What does get your attention is thinking deeply about the reality that one day, it will be you. It'll be me.

Two people a second on average is a statistic. But someday, I'll be one of those two in that second.

And that's part of the mystery. I have no idea, and you don't either, how death will appear or even when it will appear.

And that can be a very scary thought, the fact that I have no control over how or when unless I commit suicide or something like that.

There are variations on a Middle Eastern tale that I have thought about over the years, and perhaps you've heard it as well. It's called Appointment in Samarra.

The account goes that a merchant living in Baghdad sent his servant to the market for supplies. The man was sipping tea in his garden when his servant ran up to him breathless and trembling. "Mastery," he cried, "I have just seen death in the marketplace.

She looked at me with such a menacing stare that I knew she had come for me." "So you have seen death," the merchant replied, "as each man must. I understand your alarm. I must leave Baghdad and go far away from death. I have a brother in Samarra about 75 miles away. I will go there immediately, Master, and escape my fate.

Then take my swiftest horse and go with my blessing." As the hoofbeats of the fleeing servant faded in his ears, the merchant, curious, walked down to the marketplace to confront death. "My servant has done no harm. Why do you disturb him with your menacing stare?"

Death smiled somewhat apologetically. "It was not a menacing look, but a look of surprise that I gave your servant. I was merely surprised to see him in Baghdad when I have an appointment with him this evening at his brother's house in Samarra."

We all have an appointment, as Hebrews 9:27 reminds us. It is appointed for men to die once, but after this, the judgment.

I remember reading in a newspaper probably 15 years ago when I was pastoring in Perry County of a lady that had been driving her SUV on a beautiful day, a calm day. I believe she was driving in Perry County.

And she had just crossed over a bridge, a small bridge, when a large tree fell on her vehicle and killed her instantly. There was no wind. There were no, as far as I know, obvious signs that the tree was compromised.

But immediately, that was her end.

Now, I tend to be cautious when I'm driving the roads, and it's very windy, and I'm looking for dead trees and limbs and whatnot. But it's been a constant reminder to me that there's a mystery about death. There is something that is out of our control.

There's a sense in which all of us are walking around with invisible hourglasses over our heads. And we really don't know where those grains of sand are at in that glass. I might be standing before you this morning with only a few grains left.

I like to think that the top part is a lot fuller in my glass than the bottom part. In fact, I love life so much that I tell people I'd like to live to be 105. So I'm not looking for an early death. Part of the reason I like to live and want to live that long is that Heather and I got married later in life. And we want to experience 70 years of marriage. So all that has to happen is for me to live to 105, and she lives to 102, and we'll achieve our 70th wedding anniversary.

We don't know where we are at in the hourglass. Perhaps that's why Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7:2-4, "Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. For that is the end of all men, and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

We recognize, of course, that Dad Martin has just turned 80. It's a wonderful milestone. And he said several times now in the last couple of years, something that has stuck with me. He said, "It's very sobering to think that the next big thing on my calendar is that I will meet God."

Now, we hope that Dad lives to be 100. But if he lives to be 100, even so, the next big thing on his calendar and ours is meeting God.

To think that each of us is only one breath from death at any given time in life, whether awake or asleep, how many hours we spend unconscious, unaware of whether we're taking that next breath or not. In my mind, I visualize it like this. Each of us are walking along the edge of a sheer cliff, a precipice.

And there is some room. Every time I breathe in, I get a little further from the edge. But as I exhale, I again walk closer and closer to that precipice of death.

And it feels like we're walking along the plains of Kansas. But that's not exactly our position, is it? Our position is a lot more tenuous than that. It's good to be reminded we are one breath from death. It's easy to take life and breath for granted.

The mystery of death. Secondly, I'd like us to consider the misery of death. What is it that makes this thing so hard?

That makes it so fearsome? I find it to be a fearsome thing, this thing called death.

There are several things about it. One is the untimeliness so often. Does death ever come at an opportune time? Very rarely.

So often, there are breaking hearts and dashed hopes. I was pastoring in Perry County back in 2011 when there was a tragic fire at a farmhouse there in the county. It was evening time. And the husband was away working. The wife was in the barn doing chores. The children were in the farmhouse there. And the three-year-old daughter came running out to the barn saying something about her siblings playing with smoke. And the mother rushed to the house only to find it engulfed in flames.

And the other seven children from ages 11 down to seven months perished that night. And I remember attending that funeral there in Perry County with those seven caskets.

There's nothing quite like it.

To see a father and mother with one child remaining of the eight. The misery that that brings, the sorrow, the grief.

It's one of the hardest things for anyone to experience.

I think there's a sense in which no matter how old we get, we feel like death is not something that should be happening to us.

I think that's because when God breathed his breath into us, he intended us to be immortal.

And yet, the turn from God to Satan and that rebellion that Adam and Eve engaged in brought mortality and death into the world just as God had warned them that it would. And I think that's why death always feels a bit untimely.

It was not supposed to be part of the timeline. It's not supposed to be part of the human experience.

As someone said, "We know deep down that we are not like trees or grass. We were created to last."

Another misery of death besides the untimeliness is separation.

Mark Clark in his book, The Problem of Life, talked about his wife going to the doctor for some testing. And the results came back that there were some masses the doctor was very concerned about, potentially cancerous. And this, of course, put the whole family into a turmoil.

The young children were crying at night, wondering what life would be like without mommy. Mark himself was wondering what it'd be like to live, to go on without his wife. And in writing about that miserable experience, Mark says, "It struck me that what would be hard among so many things is that while I would still have lots of videos and pictures of my wife, and I'd be able to listen to her voice at any moment I wanted to, unlike many in previous generations, there would be nothing new. There would be no response to something I said or did, no conversation, no progression, no new ideas or advice, no reports on something I didn't know yet, just old memories frozen in time.

There would be nothing alive about any of it, nothing novel, nothing for today, all of which makes our human experience together what it is, the things that make her, my wife, but also my best friend. Death robs us of all this, the ongoing imprint people's lives make on our own."

Do we realize how beautiful it is to have this living and breathing interaction that we have right now called life? It's a wonderful gift. It's a beautiful thing. And that's part of what makes death so difficult. When my grandfather passed away, the iPhone didn't even exist hardly.

There have been a lot of changes in culture since he died. I would love to get his thoughts on what he thinks of things today. But that door has been closed.

Thankfully for Mark and his family, his wife eventually received the news that the tumors were benign and treatable. Death is also miserable because it is unnatural. When God breathed his spirit into man, we became body, soul, and spirit, a three-part being.

And of course, that union was supposed to last forever. There was never supposed to be any division of the three. And yet, death does just that. It divides the body and the soul and spirit. The writer in Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, "The dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it."

I think part of my natural fear of death as a human being is wondering, who am I without a body?

This is all I know. My entire conscious existence has been body, soul, and spirit. What does it mean for those to be ripped apart? Who am I without a body?

In the midst of that sort of misery or those fears, those questions that death brings, I remind you that there was someone who chose to experience it himself in order to rescue us from its worst elements. In Hebrews 2:14-15, it tells us that, "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

Remember, the point of this message is not to wallow in darkness and dismay.

It is to look at this very seriously, but also to recognize there are some beautiful things about it and on the other side of it. I want you to examine death realistically so that you experience life richly. Thankfully, we're not stuck with just the mystery and the misery of death. But thirdly, I'd like us to think about the ministry of death. That is an odd statement, I know. Perhaps a strange way to think about death as serving God's purposes.

How does death serve as a minister of God's purposes? How does it serve God's people? I really do believe that death is an unwitting and perhaps unwilling servant of God. And I think that in this fallen world, death is pressed into service in several ways. One of those is that death does not allow evil and evil men to assault good men forever.

I was thinking about the number of United States presidents there have been over the course of the nation's 250-year history.

Of all the presidents that there have been, all of them except one are former presidents.

And of the former presidents, most of them are deceased presidents. And I'm not making any evaluation or judgment call on their policies or their character. But it's interesting that no matter how good or bad they were, most of them have now died.

And when I take that out into the world situation, I find it very encouraging.

There are some really bad tyrants today around the world, very bad people. But you know they have an endpoint. They will not live forever.

List off whoever you want to list off, but their age continues to advance.

And someday, they also will face death like the rest of humanity.

Secondly, I believe death can lead us to wisdom and enjoyment.

Many of you knew my wife's brother, Jeffrey, who was killed in a car accident almost 19 years ago.

It's rather startling to think that those of you who are 23 or younger really probably have no idea who he was other than what you've heard. That's how fast life moves. For myself, I never got to meet Jeffrey because Heather and I did not meet until several months after his death.

But I have heard the accounts of what she and her parents experienced. Heather was in Chile. But as I recall, the two policemen showed up at the door fairly late at night to give that news.

And so Jeffrey's death has influenced me and even our children, even though we have never met him. Several months ago, we live in town. I was away at work. And Heather heard a knock at the door. And she looked out and she saw two policemen at the door.

She figured there's only one reason why they're here. Something has happened to Brandon.

What is there to do but to open the door? And the one was standing a little further back from the other. But the one, the near policeman, paused. And then he said, "Ma'am, is there a Jason Baxter that lives here?"

I'm not using the name that they use. But it was not my name.

And Heather talked about the relief that flooded over her.

I've developed a mantra over the years that every normal day is a blessing. Every normal day is a blessing. I know I get tired of mundane things too. But in the end, if there's no big news, no tragedy, that's good.

It's been a good day. We're all familiar with Psalm 90, verse 12, "Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." And you can number your days in several ways. One is to count the number of weeks that a typical person gets in a usual lifetime.

It's generally that number is about 4,000 weeks. So if you're living for the weekend, your total life is about 4,000 weekends. You can count up or you can count down. As of today, I have lived on this earth 17,021 days.

What a blessing. Every normal day is a blessing.

If you're interested in doing something similar, you can download an app on your phone that will give you those days, whether you want to count up or count down.

Death can lead us to wisdom and enjoyment. I really feel like the tragedy of Jeffrey's death has helped Heather and me to live life more appreciatively and intently.

And I think that's one of the ways that God presses death into his service. Number three, death allows good men to begin the good life forever.

The early Christians expressed their understanding of death in this way. They said, "If a vessel being molded has some flaw in it, it is remolded or remade so that it can become new and entire. So also it happens to man by death. For somehow or other, he has broken up that he may rise in the resurrection whole." I mean spotless, righteous, and immortal. That's Theophilus around 180.

Irenaeus around 180 as well said, "Although the body is dissolved at the appointed time because of that original disobedience, it is placed as it were in the crucible of the earth to be recast again. And when it is recast, it will not be as this corruptible body, rather it will be pure and no longer subject to decay. To each body, its own soul will be restored."

And I like that thought. I don't know that we would have any big debates on exactly where the intermediate life is, Hades and paradise and all. But I really believe that it's probably the center of the earth. And I like that thought that the body descends into that place of fire in a sense. And there's that recasting so that all the impurities are sloughed off. And at the right time, the body will be resurrected and joined with spirit and soul in the way that God designed from the very beginning, immortal, without blemish, never to face corruption or death again.

It's a beautiful thing. And so the reality is none of us can begin to experience that if we don't die first. I remember an older lady in Big Valley Church where I grew up as a teenager, the Big Valley Brother in Christ Church, Ally Kanegie was her name. It was probably a nickname. I don't know.

And she said she was in a wheelchair. And she said, "If God healed everybody, nobody would go home to heaven."

And eventually, she did pass on to her reward.

But that is the way God uses death. He brings to end this corrupted life so that we can begin the uncorrupted.

Finally, let us consider the mastery of death.

One of the things that I wonder about death is I wonder to myself, how much will it hurt? I'm a big sissy when it comes to pain. And that's a concern of mine. Maybe it's not the death so much as dying. How long would it take me to die? Can I handle it?

There's things in life that you say to yourself, "Well, at least it won't kill me. But with death, it's going to kill me." Okay? So how much does this hurt? How long will it take?

And I've come to realize that under God's control, yes, death can hurt me. It can hurt me terribly. But under God's control, it can never harm me.

For the follower of Jesus, death is temporary.

Hurt is temporary. Harm is permanent. Hurt is earthly. Harm is eternal. And God will not allow anything to happen to us as his children that he cannot redeem and use for our ultimate good. Therefore, death is something that we can face with confidence because death can only go so far. It is life. It is eternal life that rises up to undo and outdo all that death sought to destroy.

I like what Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:10. He says, "Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, he's abolished it.

It doesn't have near the weight or the power that it used to have.

And he's brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

I'm sure that your mind also goes to 1 Corinthians 15. When you think about resurrection, life beyond death, this is the passage to go to. In 1 Corinthians 15, you remember that Paul is writing about this matter.

He says in verse 35, "Someone will say, 'How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?' Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives a body as he pleases, and to each seed its own body." Verse 39, "All flesh is not the same flesh. But there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.

There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.

And so it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.' However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?

The sting of death is sin. And the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Death is a fearsome enemy. The Bible calls it our enemy.

But we serve the God who is far, far, far bigger than death could ever be.

Justin Whitmer early in his book, The Body Teaches the Soul, writes, "Imagine your body free from suffering. Imagine it awash with pleasure. Imagine it standing tall with dignity. Imagine it clothed with strength. Imagine looking at it in the mirror and absolutely loving it.

Imagine it being within your control, not rebelling as if in the throes of confused desire, but subject to you as its holy steward. Imagine it with all of its scars, but no longer as reminders of trauma or pain, now as signs of stories that were brought to a happy end. Because all manner of things we made well in the resurrection, where everything sad will come untrue, and everything lost will be found.

What you just imagined, he says, is a glimpse of your resurrected body in the kingdom to come. For Christians, the end is more beautiful than we ever dared hope and more physical than we ever dared imagine." It's a beautiful picture. And it is the picture that will come to dominate. Death will not have the last word.

Of course, I have not spoken to those who are not believers today. If indeed you have not yet made a commitment, then being one breath from death is a very serious place to be indeed. Jesus said in John that those on the last day would be resurrected all, some to life and some to death.

And so I would encourage you today to take some moments to think about your life, to think about your impending death, whether it is close at hand or many decades down the road. Take several minutes today to contemplate.

What are the things that you fear? Is there anything that you need to resolve or make right? If today indeed were your last day, would you be able to go forth with confidence in Christ?

Have you truly died to self and become raised with Christ? I love the picture in Romans 6 where Paul says that we are baptized into Christ's death, but then we are raised with his spirit. And as long as we are cultivating that relationship with the Holy Spirit, it doesn't matter what happens to this body.

It will be resurrected because it is joined to an eternal being, the Holy Spirit of God. I want you to examine death realistically so that you experience life richly. In closing, of course, each one of us are one breath from death.

But I don't want you to be wrecked by this thought or wrecked by fear. Rather, I hope that this reality helps you to live soberly and also joyfully under the care of our King. He's the one who holds all life in his hands.

He is safe. And he is kind. And because of Jesus, death is dead. And life is good. And we can trust in him. Are there any comments about the message?