Death Rehearsal

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. . . . So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:5–6, 12)

For me, the end of a year is like the end of my life. And 11:59 pm on December 31 is like the moment of my death.

The 365 days of the year are like a miniature lifetime. And these final hours are like the last days in the hospital after the doctor has told me that the end is very near. And in these last hours, the lifetime of this year passes before my eyes, and I face the inevitable question: Did I live it well? Will Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge, say “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21)?

I feel very fortunate that this is the way my year ends. And I pray that the year’s end might have the same significance for you.

The reason I feel fortunate is that it is a great advantage to have a trial run at my own dying. It is a great benefit to rehearse once a year in preparation for the last scene of your life. It is a great benefit because the morning of January 1 will find most of us still alive, at the brink of a whole new lifetime, able to start fresh all over again.

The great thing about rehearsals is that they show you where your weaknesses are, where your preparation was faulty; and they leave you time to change before the real play in front of a real audience.

I suppose for some of you the thought of dying is so morbid, so gloomy, so fraught with grief and pain that you do your best to keep it out of your minds, especially during holidays. I think that is unwise and that you do yourself a great disservice. I have found that there are few things more revolutionizing for my life than a periodic pondering of my own death.

How do you get a heart of wisdom so as to know how best to live? The psalmist answers:

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. . . . So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:5–6, 12)

Numbering your days simply means remembering that your life is short and your dying will be soon. Great wisdom — great, life-revolutionizing wisdom — comes from periodically pondering these things.

The criterion of success, that Paul used to measure his life, was whether he had kept the faith. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7–8). Let this be our test at year’s end.

And if we discover that we did not keep the faith this past year, then we can be glad, as I am, that this year-end death is (probably) only a rehearsal, and a whole life of potential faith-keeping lies before us in the next year.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Psalm 90:10

    [10] The years of our life are seventy,

        or even by reason of strength eighty;

    yet their span is but toil and trouble;

        they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Isaiah 40:6-8

The Word of God Stands Forever

    [6] A voice says, “Cry!”

        And I said, “What shall I cry?”

    All flesh is grass,

        and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 

    [7] The grass withers, the flower fades

        when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

        surely the people are grass. 

    [8] The grass withers, the flower fades,

        but the word of our God will stand forever.

Job 14:2

    [2] He comes out like a flower and withers;

        he flees like a shadow and continues not.

Psalm 103:15-16

    [15] As for man, his days are like grass;

        he flourishes like a flower of the field; 

    [16] for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

        and its place knows it no more.

Custom Plans Just for You

 

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way.”

PSALM 37:23

 

PONDER THIS

God has a special plan just for you. God doesn’t deal with us all as a group. He deals with us as individuals. Just like every snowflake has its own specific pattern, God made you as an individual, and He has a plan for you.

You may think, “Well, that’s true for those like you, Pastor Rogers, that God has called into His service.” No, it is true for you too. The same that is true for the preacher is true for the plumber. The same that is true for the missionary is true for the secretary. God has a plan for each individual life.

It’s not that some positions are higher than others. The will of God is the highest place, no matter your vocation. God loves you and has a plan for you. Our role is to trust Him. Sometimes my wife will ask, “Adrian, will you do something for me?” What’s my first question? “What is it?” She usually gives me an answer, but suppose she says, “Adrian, will you do something for me?” And I ask, “Well, what is it?” She replies, “Never mind, just trust me.” I gulp and say, “Okay.” Why? Because I love her, and I know she loves me. I don’t have to worry. God has a plan for us, and we can trust Him.

How does God’s love for you lead you to greater trust in Him?

How can you grow in following God’s direction for your life right now?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out your desires for your life then jot down what you have felt God leading you toward. How do the two differ? How do you need to respond?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Outfitted and Empowered

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)

Christ shed the blood of the eternal covenant. By this successful redemption, he obtained the blessing of his own resurrection from the dead. That is even clearer in Greek than it is in English, and here it’s clear enough: “God . . . brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus . . . by the blood of the eternal covenant.” This Jesus — raised by the blood of the covenant — is now our living Lord and Shepherd.

And because of all that, God does two things:

he equips us with everything good that we may do his will, and

he works in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

The “eternal covenant,” secured by the blood of Christ, is the new covenant. And the new covenant promise is this: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Therefore, the blood of this covenant not only secures God’s equipping us to do his will, but also secures God working in us to make that equipping successful.

The will of God is not just written on stone or paper as a means of grace. It is worked in us. And the effect is: We feel and think and act in ways more pleasing to God.

We are still commanded to use the equipment he gives: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” But more importantly we are told why: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13).

If we are able to please God — if we do his good pleasure — it is because the blood-bought grace of God has moved from mere equipping to omnipotent transforming.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Psalm 25:12

    [12] Who is the man who fears the LORD?

        Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.

1 Samuel 2:9

    [9] “He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,

        but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness,

        for not by might shall a man prevail.

Psalm 40:2

    [2] He drew me up from the pit of destruction,

        out of the miry bog,

    and set my feet upon a rock,

        making my steps secure.

Psalm 37:23

    [23] The steps of a man are established by the LORD,

        when he delights in his way;

The Greatest Inheritance

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” JOHN 14:27

 

PONDER THIS

Have you ever received anything in a will? Through Jesus, you did. On the cross He said, “My peace I give to you.” Jesus was going back to Heaven, and this is the legacy He left for you. Jesus gave you His peace, and no lawyer on Earth can nullify that will—it is yours.

If you don’t have peace, it may be that you don’t understand what you have in the name of Jesus. There’s welfare in that name. I was trying to witness to a man. We had a friendly conversation, but I approached the subject of Jesus, and he told me how he was fine without God.

He said, “You see that house? It’s paid for. I am happily married, and I have a retirement income set. I’m doing quite well, thank you.” I asked, “Do you have peace in your heart?” He said, “I told you, I’m good.” I said, “That doesn’t change my question, ‘Do you have peace in your heart?’” His chin began to quiver, and his eyes brimmed with tears, and he said, “No! I don’t have peace. How did you know?” I said, “Because the Bible says, ‘There is no peace,’ says the LORD, ‘for the wicked’” (Isaiah 48:22). Jesus is the only peace we will ever know. He is the peace that passes understanding.

Would you say you live with peace in your soul? Why or why not?

When have you had a hard time remembering your access to God’s peace?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about a current area of anxiety. Ask God that His peace would consume that concern.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

A Horrible Destiny

. . . Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

Do you remember the time you were lost as a child, or slipping over a precipice, or about to drown? Then suddenly you were rescued. You held on for “dear life.” You trembled for what you almost lost. You were happy. Oh, so happy, and thankful. And you trembled with joy.

That’s the way I feel at the end of the year about my rescue from God’s wrath. All day Christmas we had a fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the coals were so hot that when I stoked it my hand hurt. I pulled back and shuddered at the horrendous thought of the wrath of God against sin in hell. Oh, how unspeakably horrible that will be!

Christmas afternoon I visited a woman who had been burned over 87 percent of her body. She has been in the hospital since August. My heart broke for her. How wonderful it was to hold out hope to her from God’s word for a new body in the age to come! But I came away not only thinking about her pain in this life, but also about the everlasting pain I have been saved from through Jesus.

Test my experience with me. Is this trembling joy a fitting way to end the year? Paul was glad that “Jesus . . . delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He warned that “for those who . . . do not obey the truth . . . there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). And “because of [sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness] the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

Here at the end of the year, I am finishing my trek through the Bible and reading the last book, Revelation. It is a glorious prophecy of the triumph of God, and the everlasting joy of all who “take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17). No more tears, no more pain, no more depression, no more sorrow, no more death, no more sin (Revelation 21:4).

But oh, the horror of not repenting and not holding fast to the testimony of Jesus! The description of the wrath of God by the “apostle of love” (John) is terrifying. Those who spurn God’s love will “drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:10–11).

“And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Jesus will “tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15). And blood will flow “from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 184 miles” (Revelation 14:20). Whatever that vision signifies, it is meant to communicate something unspeakably terrible.

I tremble with joy that I am saved! But oh, the holy wrath of God is a horrible destiny. Flee this, brothers and sisters. Flee this with all your might. And let us save as many as we can! No wonder there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous (Luke 15:7)!

John Piper