Facing the Last Enemy
Though we fear it, we must all face it. Though we hate it, we must all meet it. Though we dread it, we cannot avoid it. It is, of course, death. In this broken and battered world, death always looms over life, death always stands hauntingly in the distance.
Death is the subject of a new book by Guy Prentiss Waters. Facing the Last Enemy is meant to acquaint Christians with death so they might think about it rightly and face it courageously. “We all have questions about death,” he says. “’What is death? Why do we die? Why do we all die? Why is death so scary? Why did Christ die? Why do Christians have to die? How can I face the death of someone I love? How can I prepare for death? How can I help others prepare for death? What happens after death?’” To gain compelling, truthful, and reliable answers to such questions we must turn to the Bible, to God’s revelation of himself, for here we will learn how death entered the world, why we must all face it, and how it will itself someday die.
The book is divided into three roughly equal sections. In the first section Waters defines death. He explains what it is, where it came from, and what happens when we die (whether we are Christians or non-Christians). He explains why Christ had to die and why Christians still need to die, even though Christ died on our behalf. This is, essentially, a brief theology of death and one that provides a solid foundation for what follows. He is careful not to make death more intimidating than it needs to be for the Christian, but also not to romanticize it, saying “while death is not good in itself, for those who are in Christ, death will be for our good. For His people, Christ brings an end not to the experience of death but to the fear of death. … As we approach death, we need to see it through the spectacles of the finished work of Christ. The gospel tells us that Christ has conquered and subdued death. That is the only way that we can face death with hope or confidence.”
In the second section he writes about encountering death. He provides counsel on facing the deaths of other people, on helping those who are dying or grieving, and on preparing ourselves for the inevitable end of our lives. Here it is clear that he writes as both a theologian and a pastor, as someone who knows doctrinal truths but who has also had to apply them in the most tragic and heartbreaking of circumstances. He gets quite practical here, going so far as to encourage Christians to show love to others by considering their estate planning and even planning their own death and burial. But primarily, of course, he encourages Christians to prepare themselves spiritually to meet their Maker.
The final section looks beyond death to the resurrection, the final judgment, and heaven and hell. He shows how each of these truths ought to compel us to live worthy lives on this side of the grave. For example, “Our bodies are precious because Christ bought them with His own blood. We will inhabit our bodies forever, and they have a glorious destiny. Our bodies are prized in God’s sight. We should not neglect our bodies but care for them. We should not allow our bodies to participate in sin but should ‘present [ourselves] to God as those who have been brought from death to life’ (Rom. 6:13a). How does the way that you treat and use your body reflect the truth of the resurrection?”
Death is inevitable in this world. It is inevitable that we will need to endure the deaths of people we love and inevitable that we ourselves will die. For that reason alone we ought to familiarize ourselves with death—to know what it is, why it exists, how we can face it well, and how we can have great hope beyond it. This book is an excellent resource that will help accomplish all of that. It is rich in its teaching, compassionate in its tone, and saturated with Scripture. I highly recommend it (and the optional video teaching series that accompanies it).
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What Matters Is Not the Size of Your Faith
We aren’t certain whether gold is pure or alloyed until it is tested in the fire. We don’t know whether steel is rigid or brittle until it is tested by stress. We can’t have confidence that water is pure until it passes through a filter. And in much the same way, we don’t know what our faith is made of until we face trials. It is the testing of our faith that displays its genuineness, says Peter, and it is passing through the trial that generates praise and glory and honor. Though we do not wish to endure trials and do not deliberately bring them upon ourselves, we know that in the providence of God they are purposeful and meaningful, that they are divine means to make us “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
There are many who face trials and do not pass the test. Some face physical pain and through it grow angry with God and determine they cannot love a God who lets them endure such difficulties. Some face the possibility of persecution and find they prefer to run from the faith than to suffer for it. Some have children who turn to aberrant sexual practices and who prefer to renounce God than fail to affirm their kids. Some watch loved ones suffer and die and determine that a God who permits such things is not worthy of their love, their trust, their admiration. In these ways and so many more, some are tested and, through the test, shown to have a faith that is fraudulent.
Yet there are many others who face such trials and emerge with their faith not only intact, but strengthened. They face physical pain and through it grow in submission to God and confidence in his purposes. They face the possibility of persecution and find they would prefer to suffer than to deny the God who has saved them. They have children who turn to aberrant sexual practices and, though they still love their kids, refuse to affirm them. They watch loved ones suffer and die and say, in meekness, that the God with the right to give is the God with the right to take away.
What fascinates me is how bad we are at predicting who will pass the test and who will not. We sometimes look at people who have accumulated great stores of Bible trivia and great knowledge of Christian doctrine and assume they are the ones who will necessarily pass through the fire unharmed. Yet these are sometimes the ones who turn away at the first heat. We sometimes look at people who have only a rudimentary store of Bible trivia and little knowledge of Christian doctrine and assume they are the ones who will be first to waver, stumble, and fall. Yet these are often the ones who cling most tenaciously. We are not nearly as wise, not nearly as discerning, as we may have thought.
All of this goes to prove that what matters is not the size of a person’s faith, but its object. What secures us in our trials is not the magnitude of our faith, but the power of the one in whom we have placed it. The smallest bit of faith in God is worth infinitely more than the greatest bit of faith in ourselves, or the strongest measure of faith in faith itself. Faith counts for nothing unless its object is Jesus Christ.
Thus, when the fire burns hot, we learn to our surprise that some may have had tremendous faith in themselves, but no faith in Jesus. When the floods rise high, we learn to our shock that some may have had faith in faith, but no faith in the Lord of all the universe. Yet when others pass through the flames, we learn to our joy that though their faith may have been little greater than a mustard seed, its object was the eternal, immortal God. When the waters swell around them and it seems as if they may go under, we learn to the satisfaction of our souls that though their faith may have been very small, it was faith in the one who is the Rock. We learn, with praise in our hearts, that they have been held fast by the one who is the glorious object of their unwavering faith. -
Give Me a Faith Like His!
You can only imagine what Joseph’s family thought. You can only imagine what the townsfolk thought. You can only imagine what the religious leaders thought. You can only imagine the laughter and the mocking, the rumors and the gossip, the scolding and the censure. And maybe we should imagine it.
“Does he really expect us to believe that he wasn’t the one who got Mary pregnant?” “I’ve heard lots of excuses in my time, but never ‘I was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.’” “I heard that it wasn’t her first time, either.” “I heard she got attacked when she was out drawing water.”
The fact is, those people would be no more likely to believe her explanation than we would be if someone fed it to us today. And those people would have been no less eager to propose some more likely explanations. Those people weren’t so different from us, though they may have lived at a very different time and in a very different context.
We can hardly blame Joseph for wanting to walk away—to walk away from the mocking, from the gossip, from the shame. We can hardly blame him for resolving to divorce her. We can hardly blame him for wanting to extricate himself from betrothal to a woman who was clearly no virgin. He, after all, was a just man and an innocent one. So at least he planned to do it quietly.
It took nothing less than divine intervention to get him to stay. “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit’” (Matthew 1:20). When Joseph awoke he remembered the dream, he accepted it as God’s own revelation, and he received it as God’s own instruction. He set aside all thought of divorce, he took Mary as his wife, and he raised her son as his own.
Imagine Mary’s joy, Mary’s relief, Mary’s sense of comfort and well-being when Joseph told her he loved her, he believed her, and he accepted her. Imagine Mary’s gratitude when Joseph stood beside her and said “My wife,” when he took that baby in his arms and said, “My son.” Imagine how his obedience impacted Mary, how his faith blessed his wife, how his love made all the difference.
We can be certain the gossip did not end the day Joseph declared, “I believe her.” We can be certain people were no more convinced by his dream than her visitation. The gossip did not turn to acceptance simply because he added his testimony to hers. Rather, I suspect it increased all the more. “I can’t believe he’s so naive.” “I guess he can’t come up with a better explanation than a dream.” “If this isn’t proof that he’s the one who got her pregnant I don’t know what is!”
But Joseph was a man of faith, a man who chose to believe God’s word and obey God’s direction, a man whose decision to accept Mary was also a decision to share her shame. But he knew that God had spoken, he knew what God had spoken, and nothing would dissuade him, nothing would compel him to reject what God had made abundantly clear.
And as I listened to this familiar passage during my morning devotions, a passage I’ve heard hundreds or even thousands of times, I found myself praying, “God, thank you for Joseph. And please give me the faith of Joseph. Give me the faith to listen attentively to your Word, give me the faith to believe it even when it cuts hard against my presuppositions, give me the faith to apply it even when it’s especially difficult. Let me be like Joseph. Give me a faith like his.” -
New and Notable Christian Books for Children
Over the past few weeks I’ve received several boxes of books for kids. Because the publishers take the time to send them, I like to take the time to look them over. Having done so, I thought I’d provide a bit of a roundup for parents or grandparents or others who are looking for some good material for kids. Coincidentally, Westminster Books has many of these titles significantly discounted right now as part of their Kids’ Week Sale, so it’s a good time to purchase a few. I’ve divided them into books for younger kids and books for older kids.
Books for Younger Kids
Books for Older Kids
