Tag Archives: death

Update on Our Brother Rick

February 19, 2012 By in Body Life Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

After service today I traveled to Winter Park hospital to visit with Rick and Barb in ICU. Our brother remains on the respirator with his bride at his side.

The doctors have assured her that given his condition, they expect him to pass quite soon. Short of a miracle they see no hope of recovery. Certain complications have developed that make that prospect medically impossible in their opinion.

Barb remains firm in her trust on the solid rock, Jesus. Abby, Lord willing, will arrive from Singapore at 5 PM EST tomorrow night.

We spoke of things related to memorial services and the like. I assured her that OGC would supply everything she needs in the way of assistance as she walks with Rick through the valley of the shadow.

I suspect this week to make other updates as necessary from the office through email with Teddie’s help, but wanted to provide some outlet of information knowing that many have been praying. This seemed to be the most efficient way on a Sunday.

Please continue to pray for God’s grace to abound in every way in this hard providence in the lives of one of our covenant families.

Many thanks.

A Tale of Four Households

December 21, 2011 By in Marriage & Family, Theology Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

By tale I don’t mean fiction. Each family referenced in this post once existed or does now actually exist. These tales relate fact, some of it hard-to-swallow, down right mind blowing truth.

Household #1 – Ezekiel the prophet’s.

Every year as I read through the entirety of the Bible I always come up short when I reach Ezekiel 24:15-18.

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.

God employed His prophet during unique times of judgment ministering among His people during exile in Babylon. The Lord put numerous difficult requirements upon Ezekiel in the object-lesson-like way He spoke to rebellious Israel through the prophet, but none more staggering in its implications than this one. He slew His servant’s wife, none other than the delight of his eyes. The sovereign Lord of the universe, at a stroke, struck down the man’s bride. Additionally, to suit His purposes of pressing home conviction for Israel’s hardness of heart in the face of judgment, God prohibited Ezekiel from demonstrating any grief (Ezek. 24:19-24).

Remarkably, Ezekiel treasured the Lord more than the delight of his eyes and did as he was commanded. This man did not worship at the altar of his marriage. His wife was no idol. God’s purposes trumped everything, even long life with his beloved, in this servant’s journey toward a better country (Heb. 11:16).

Household #2 – Dr. R. C. Sproul, Jr.’s

Dr. Sproul, a teaching fellow at Ligonier Ministries, lost his wife, Denise, at the tender age of 46 this past Sunday morning after three different battles with cancer. She left behind not just her bereaved husband, but eight children as well, ages 2 to 18. I represented the OGC leadership at the memorial service the morning of this writing, extending our condolences and assuring of our prayers.

Not surprisingly, given the affinity for Reformed theology in the Ligonier and St. Andrew’s families, all who spoke waved high the banner of God’s sovereignty over the hard providence of loss, not at all unlike the account of Ezekiel 24. “The Lord took her home” and phrases like it were spoken without reservation as if this were something God had done. The Lord gave and He has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Fortunately for Dr. Sproul Jr. and all in attendance, no prohibition of grieving held sway over the sorrowful yet rejoicing occasion (2 Cor. 6:10).

I am told our dear sister went home to her reward to take up residence in the suite Jesus had prepared especially for her (John 14:2) around 6 AM that Sunday. I am further told that the St. Andrews family gathered for worship as usual later that morning and that Dr. Sproul, Jr. attended. I count him among that brave and happy band of brothers who, even in the grip of staggering loss, resolves to do as God commands.

Household #3 – Mine

Today Nancy and I mark our 37th anniversary. This morning I went to a colleague in the gospel’s memorial service for his bride. Tonight I will take my bride to a restaurant and celebrate nearly four decades of covenant marriage and ministry partnership. The irony of the confluence of these things on the same day was not lost on me, especially as a cancer survivor enjoying over six years cancer free after my life-and-death battle with the disease in 2005.

As I drove to the memorial service, I asked. Why me, Lord? Why do I get to dine with the delight of my eyes while this man with a far greater stewardship of ministry and breadth of impact than I will ever have buries the delight of his eyes this Christmas?

Only one answer suffices – the sovereignty of God. The same banner flies over all three households. “What do you have that you did not receive” (1 Cor. 4:7). “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me (John 21:22)!”

Whatever the providence, bitter or sweet, hard or soft, good or bad, in life and death, for the follower of Jesus who loves Christ more than life and wife and breadth, there can be only one response at ever turn. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord (Josh. 24:15). By His grace and through His power we will do as He commands as High King of heaven, God the Father over all and through all and in all (Eph. 4:6).

Household #4 – Yours

Providence shapes your experience this Christmas season and into 2012 and beyond. All your circumstances, past, present, and future come through the hand of the One whose counsel stands accomplishing all His purpose (Isaiah 46:10) and works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

In all those providences, one question remains. Will you do as He commands for His glory and your greater joy?

Dealing With Death and Disease

October 25, 2011 By in Spiritual Life Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The good folks at Ligonier Ministries have hit the ball out of the park once again with this month’s edition of Tabletalk Magazine focused on death and disease.

How I wish I had a copy during my head and neck cancer journey back in ’05. The articles within touch on so many redemptive themes that encourage the disabled, the suffering, and those experiencing the heartache of loss that comes with the last enemy.

And, true to form, my connection at the magazine has come through by making available to me several complimentary copies to distribute this Sunday at OGC. If you or somebody you know now walks through the valley of the shadow in some way, shape, or form, I highly encourage you to come see me this Sunday for a copy.

Here is a sample of the content from an extremely penetrating interview with Joni Eareckson Tada as she talks about various Scriptures that have sustained her over the years in her hard providence of quadriplegia:

Another anchor is Deuteronomy 31:6, where God tells me, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified [of quadriplegia, chronic pain, or cancer], for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (NIV). I’m convinced a believer can endure any amount of suffering as long as he’s convinced that God is with him in it. And we have the Man of Sorrows, the most God-forsaken man who ever lived, so that, in turn, He might say to us, “I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.” God wrote the book on suffering and He called it Jesus. This means God understands. He knows. He’s with me. My diving accident really was an answer to that prayer to be drawn closer to Him.

While I hope you enjoy these freebies, beyond that I hope it will propel some of you to become regular subscribers to Tabletalk even as I am. It anchors my daily quiet time with the Lord and that sweet place has profited all the more ever since I took a subscription.

To subscribe click here.

A Triumphal Entry of a Different Kind (Part 1)

March 6, 2011 By in Exposition Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

This morning’s message from John 12:12-19 is now on the website. You can listen to the audio here.

The theme and outline for this two-part series on the triumphal entry are as follows:

The distinctly unique aspects of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem call for our belief in Him as the Messiah, God’s Son.

  • He embraced Messianic acclaim
  • He realized Messianic expectations
  • He performed Messianic works
  • He fulfilled Messianic purpose.

We considered only the first in part one.

John MacArthur made this insight about the significance of Jesus’ hour coming to pass at the same time as Passover:

Jesus did it in His own time and forced the whole issue, brought about the whole thing in order that it might happen exactly on the Passover day, fitting that when all the other lambs were being sacrificed, the One true Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world would be sacrificed on the very same day that all the rest of the sacrifices were going on. So Jesus was not at the mercy of the plots of men, but rather was bringing about the forcing of the issue of His own death so that it would happen on a day when He planned it and God planned it before the world began, not when the Jewish leaders decided it would happen.

His coming into Jerusalem precipitated the crisis of His death in God’s appointed time. That’s why He so openly and freely embraced the Messianic acclaim offered Him along the road toward Jerusalem when every time before He had refused the same.

Hail to the Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world!

When Deity Delivered from Dying (Part Two)

December 26, 2010 By in Exposition Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Today’s message from John 11:38-44 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is the quote from Jonathan Edwards about the meaning of the term glory:

The word glory denotes sometimes what is internal. When the word is used to signify what is within, or in the possession of the subject, it very commonly signifies excellency, dignity, or worthiness of regard. This, according to the Hebrew idiom, is, as it were, the weight of a thing, as that by which it is heavy; as to be light is to be worthless, without value, contemptible. . . . And the weight of a thing arises from its magnitude, and its specific gravity conjunctly; so the word glory is very commonly used to signify the excellency of a person or a thing, as consisting either in greatness, or in beauty, or in both conjunctly (as quoted in Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory, p. 231).

I mentioned this morning that I would post a link to Francis Chan’s message, Think Hard, Be Humble. Turns out I already did a blog post about it! To read it and watch the message click here.

Praise God Jesus gives the answer to the canyon question that we may be delivered from ultimately dying!

When Deity Delivered from Dying (Part One)

December 19, 2010 By in Exposition Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Today’s message from John 11:38-44 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I reiterated the theme this way:

Because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, we should believe on Him as the Messiah, God’s Son.

We covered four of seven observations about Jesus from the text that present Him to us as undeniably true and strikingly beautiful:

  1. His passion – deeply moved with anger over death.
  2. His pattern – test and grow faith.
  3. His patience – with our slow-to-learn unbelief.
  4. His precept – believing is seeing not seeing is believing.

I closed with this incisive quote from Oswald Chambers:

Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? The test will either prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it. “Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” The final thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and all you come up against will develop your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is unutterable trust in God which never dreams that He will not stand by us.

Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will finish the account of the seventh sign with three more observations – His purpose, prayer, and power.

And we will finally get poor Lazarus out of the ground, so to speak!

When Deity Dissolved Over Dying

December 12, 2010 By in Exposition Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Today’s message from John 11:28-37 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is the quote by B. B. Warfield characterizing the depth of emotion displayed by Jesus as fundamentally rage.

It is death that is the object of his wrath, and behind death him who has the power of death, and whom he has come into the world to destroy. Tears of sympathy may fill his eyes, but this is incidental. His soul is held by rage: and he advances to the tomb, in Calvin’s words again, “as a champion who prepares for conflict.” The raising of Lazarus thus becomes, not an isolated marvel, but — as indeed it is presented throughout the whole narrative (compare especially, verses 24-26) — a decisive instance and open symbol of Jesus’ conquest of death and hell. What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus, as he wins for us our salvation. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe, Jesus smites in our behalf. He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us; he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption.

Praise God for Jesus our champion who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10)!

"I Can't Find Anything Wrong with You"

August 20, 2010 By in Personal Reflection Tags: , , , 7 Comments

Sweeter words a man has rarely heard.

They came from the lips of my ENT on Wednesday.

He spoke them after doing the upteenth exam on my mouth, tongue, and neck over the last five years, looking yet again for any evidences of cancer.

The verdict? I can’t find anything wrong with you. Good thing he wasn’t doing an exam on my sinful heart!

And so I graduate. I will miss the good doctor, but not the exams. He conveyed upon me the degree, Master of Life. Best one of the four I have ever gotten.

No need to see him or the radiation oncologist any more. Only my medical oncologist remains to sign off on the “cured” designation for my five year battle against head and neck cancer before the lot falls to my dentist alone to stand guard against another invasion of renegade cells.

Cool. Five years is a long time. I’ve dreamed of August 2010 many times. That God allowed me to make it and that we will celebrate that gift on the 29th at 6 PM at the SDA sanctuary AND that doc said he would come (please pray that he does) all have made for a very good month for me. I am grateful. Extremely grateful.

The poet, himself the beneficiary of his own miraculous deliverance from death, asked in Psalm 116:12, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?

The answer comes in vv. 13-14.

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

Oh, Lord God, make me faithful to do the same. Faithful to do the same.

Biblical Resolutions Distilled from a Battle with Cancer

August 12, 2010 By in Personal Reflection Tags: , , , 2 Comments

As August marks the five year anniversary of my finishing treatment for head and neck cancer, I find myself thinking a lot about that season in my life. I had no idea going in what a monumental deliverance God would work on my behalf through the process. It amounted, in my estimation, to nothing less than a rescue from the jaws of death.

For that reason I had little trouble deciding what text to preach from when I finally returned to the pulpit. God drew me to Psalm 116. You can listen to the first of these sermons here.

There the anonymous psalmist clearly celebrates a miraculous deliverance from some desperate straits. He uses terms that suggest he nearly lost his life. He thought he was a goner. For example, in v. 3 he writes, the snares of death encompassed me. And in v. 8 – you have delivered my soul from death.

He wrote the psalm post-deliverance to celebrate the miraculous intervention of God into his precarious circumstances. Laced throughout the text we find repeated resolves. This thing, whatever it was, made an astonishing impact on the writer. He recorded the specifics for the church in all ages.

From his example I drew this thesis for a series of three messages:

Deliverance by God from desperate straits warrants renewed resolves in a relationship with God.

When God intervenes in your plight and brings you through to the other side and you know that no one else but He could have engineered your deliverance, then it makes all the sense in the world to assess your relationship with Him and make serious resolves to strengthen it. There are seven in the text and, Lord willing, I will blog about them one-by-one throughout the rest of this month.

I continue to be grateful for length of days and look forward to our special celebration of thanksgiving for this miraculous deliverance on August 29!

Vastly Different Perspectives on Sickness

March 20, 2010 By in Personal Reflection Tags: , , 5 Comments

While suffering recently through the most prolonged bout with the Epstein Barr virus I have experienced in years, I received two vastly different perspectives on sickness.

The first came from an old high school acquaintance. While I was ill she phoned me about our 40th high school reunion coming up in October. I explained that I couldn’t really talk with her because of my sickness. She asked, “What’s wrong.” “Long story,” I replied, hoping to evade going any deeper. Then she offered to pray for me. I gratefully accepted. Then she pressed. “Do you have the flu?” I think she asked. “No, I have a virus.” “What kind of virus?” I reluctantly explained, including some description of the debilitating fatigue that comes with the bug. Before launching into a very vigorous prayer, she added without the slightest trace of doubt, “God doesn’t want you sick.” You may well imagine what denominational tradition has shaped her theology of illness. I let it go.

Contrast that with the content of an email someone in OGC sent me. It’s a quote by J. C. Ryle.

Sickness helps to remind men of death. Most live as if they were never going to die. They follow business, or pleasure, or politics, or science, as if earth was their eternal home. They plan and scheme for the future, like the rich fool in the parable, as if they had a long lease of life, and were not, tenants at will. A heavy illness sometimes goes far to dispel these delusions. It awakens men from their day-dreams, and reminds them they have to die as well as to live. Now this I say emphatically is a mighty good (Practical Religion, “Sickness”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1998], 360).

I rather think Job would have cast his vote for the second perspective given his reaction to trials that included boils on his body in Job 42:1-6. I suspect Paul would have done the same given his account of a divinely given thorn in the flesh (assuming it was some kind of physical malady, of course) that taught him the all-sufficiency of God’s grace for every extremity in 2 Cor. 12:1-10.

I’m certain my old high school friend meant well with her prayer ministry on my behalf. But I can’t help but believe along with Ryle that God pursues multiple redemptive purposes in our sicknesses and this emphatically is a mighty good.