Three \u201cpop\u201d postcards illustrate three aspects of the world\u2019s perspective on death:<\/p>\n
Fear:<\/i> A man is pictured standing directly beneath an enormous, needle-sharp dagger that is suspended from above by a very thin thread. The caption: \u201cIt\u2019s very inconvenient to be mortal\u2014you never know when everything may suddenly stop happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
False hope:<\/i> A person is lying in bed. The caption: \u201cTell the scientist to hurry\u2014I don\u2019t want to die before they discover how to save me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uncertainty:<\/i> A health enthusiast is pictured jogging. The caption: \u201cI\u2019m doing what I can to prolong my life, hoping that someday I\u2019ll learn what it\u2019s for.\u201d304<\/p>\n
For Roger<\/i><\/p>\n
My sister is crying,<\/p>\n
Why can\u2019t I?<\/p>\n
I guess it hasn\u2019t hit me that my brother has died;<\/p>\n
I feel nothing inside<\/p>\n
My brother has died<\/p>\n
It may hit me years from now<\/p>\n
But when I found out<\/p>\n
That he was gone I felt nothing<\/p>\n
So I wrote down<\/p>\n
This song.<\/p>\n
Nothing I can do will bring him back<\/p>\n
Why is it that I have no feeling\u2014<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no act I\u2019m not hurt and I\u2019m not down<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just sitting here writing this song<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not sure it\u2019s not fact<\/p>\n
But I still want my brother back.<\/p>\n
Life ends tomorrow<\/p>\n
Not for me<\/p>\n
Just for my brother<\/p>\n
Not for me<\/p>\n
His life is over<\/p>\n
Not for me.305<\/p>\n
These are the words of a distraught father telling us of his reaction to the death of his son. He says:<\/p>\n
The rays of a late morning South Carolina sun struck me full on the face as I stepped through the door of the hospital. The squint of my eyes, however, was not occasioned by the rays of the sun; it was the visible display of the anguish and despair that wracked my very life. I had spent several hours with my sobbing wife. Now I was about to keep the appointment that would prove to be the emotional climax of the day my world collapsed. On my way to the appointment, I stopped at a diner to have a cup of coffee and to bolster my courage. I was oblivious to everything except the appointment that awaited me. Leaving the diner, I made my way to a large white house, located on a corner in Columbia, South Carolina. I followed the owner into a large room, where he soon left me alone. I slowly made my way across a thick rug on the floor to a table on the far side of the room. Upon the table was a white box. I stood before that white box for endless eternities before I finally summoned enough courage to look over the top and down into the white box, at the lifeless body of my son. At that sight my world collapsed. I would have given up all of my academic and athletic awards. I would have given up the prestigious executive training program that I was engaged in with one of the largest international oil companies. I would have given anything. For the first time in my life, I had come to a hurdle I could not clear. My world collapsed.<\/p>\n
This is the sting of death that the non-Christian is confronted with\u2014and to which he has no answer.306<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I\u2019m afraid to die. I just don\u2019t want to be there when it happens\u201d (Woody Allen).307<\/p>\n
Today, some people\u2019s fear of death is so strong and their confidence in technology so great that they are spending tens of thousands of dollars to have their bodies frozen at the time of death. Their hope is that they might be revived to live again when a cure is found for whatever caused their death.308<\/p>\n
The story is told of an author, William Saroyan, who had achieved great success in his field. His works had been acclaimed in the literary world, his name was a familiar entry on best-seller lists, and he had even been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. But now he lay dying in New York City of cancer, which had spread to several of his vital organs.<\/p>\n
One evening, as Saroyan reflected on his condition and what the future held for him, he placed a phone call to Associated Press. After identifying himself to the reporter who answered his call, he posed a question that revealed the honest, searching sensitivity that had characterized his career. It was a final statement to be used after his death (which occurred later in May of 1981).<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cEverybody has got to die. But I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?\u201d And then he hung up the phone. (Cited in Reader\u2019s Digest<\/i>, Dec. 1981, p. 136.)309<\/p>\n
Literature is filled with the expressions of fear about death that grip the hearts of unbelievers. Socrates said, \u201cNo one knows whether death \u2026 may not be the greatest of all good,\u201d but men \u201cin their fear apprehend it to be the greatest evil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis Bacon wrote, \u201cMen fear death as children fear to go in the dark.\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Samuel Johnson told of his horror at the death of a friend: \u201cAt the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation never known to me before: a confusion of passions, an awful stillness of sorrow, a gloomy terror without a name.\u201d310<\/p>\n
A missionary told an old Indian chief about Jesus Christ, describing him as God\u2019s only way to heaven. \u201cThe Jesus road is a good road,\u201d the aged chief agreed. \u201cBut I have followed the Indian road all my life, and I cannot change now.\u201d A year later, he lay in his hut, deathly sick. The missionary hurried to his side and once more told him of Christ. \u201cCan I turn to Jesus now?\u201d the dying chief asked. \u201cMy own road stops here. It has no way through the valley!\u201d<\/p>\n
Every road that a man walks in life ends at the grave. The roads of religion, fame, wealth, and success can never take you through the valley of the shadow of death. Only Christ can do that! And he will if you will but trust him.311<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three \u201cpop\u201d postcards illustrate three aspects of the world\u2019s perspective on death: Fear: A man is pictured standing directly beneath an enormous, needle-sharp dagger that is suspended from above by a very thin thread. The caption: \u201cIt\u2019s very inconvenient to be mortal\u2014you never know when everything may suddenly stop happening.\u201d False hope: A person is … Continue reading “DEATH, UNBELIEVER\u2019S RESPONSE TO”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}