The question for this week, “Is it okay for Christians to fear death?” Someone recently asked me this question and as we discussed the topic, I thought it would be a good topic for the three of us to opine on.
Every person ever born must come to the realization that they are going to physically die. When we are young, 10-foot-tall and bullet proof, death is the farthest thing from our minds. As we get older and the experiences of life influence our understanding, our eventual death becomes real. Our view of death as Christians should be different from non-Christians. As Christians we should have the comfort, just like David, that God is always with us including our most difficult times. David wrote in Psalm 23, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me;”[1] God never leaves us nor forsakes us, but does that mean we should not fear the act of dying?
Before answering the question, I want to look at a couple verses of Scripture that should put every Christian at peace. Paul told the Corinthians, “Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”[2] Jesus asked Martha prior to the resurrection of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”[3]
Fear of the unknown is natural. The fact that we don’t know how we are going to die is a valid thing for a Christian to fear. I have heard many Christians say the fear that it may be painful or drawn out is what they are afraid of. However, there is one thing that we do know! Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is there. We should have confidence as Christians, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. I will close with this illustration to exemplify my point.
“A dying man was fearful, even though he was a born-again Christian. He expressed his feelings to his Christian doctor. The physician was silent, not knowing what to say. Just then a whining and scratching was heard at the door. When the doctor opened it, in bounded his big beautiful dog, who often went with him as he made house calls. The dog was glad to see his master. Sensing an opportunity to comfort his troubled patient, the doctor said, “My dog has never been in your room before, so he didn’t know what it was like in here. But he knew I was in here, and that was enough. In the same way, I’m looking forward to heaven. I don’t know much about it, but I know my Savior is there. And that’s all I need to know.”[4]
In Christ,
Don
[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ps 23:4.
[2] NASB95, 2 Co 5:6–8.
[3] NASB95, Jn 11:25–26.
[4] Michael P. Green, ed., Illustrations for Biblical Preaching: Over 1500 Sermon Illustrations Arranged by Topic and Indexed Exhaustively, Revised edition of: The expositor’s illustration file. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).