And When I Come To Die - Alistair Begg

we're going to read from the Bible in the first book of the Bible in Genesis and chapter 50 and from verse 22 and then from there I'm going to turn to Hebrews chapter 11 and you'll find that reading if you need help on page 852 of the church Bibles I won't insult you by giving you the page for the Genesis reference but if you do need help with Hebrews then Hebrews 11 is on page 852 in the church Bibles and interestingly our verse there is also the 22nd verse so Genesis 50:20 2 then Hebrews 11 22 reading from Genesis mm-hmm Joseph stayed in Egypt along with all his father's family he lived a hundred and ten years and saw the third generation of ephram's children also the children of Mackay are son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph's needs then Joseph said to his brothers I am about to die but God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and said God will surely come to your aid and then you must carry up my bonds from this place so Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten and after they hadn't bombed him he was placed in a coffin in Egypt and then gen Hebrews 11 and verse 22 by faith Joseph when his end was near spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones thanks be to God for His Word and we're going to pause and just ask for God's help as we pray together gracious God with our Bibles open and our hearts prepared to receive your truth come now and meet with us we pray we're not interested in hearing the ramblings of a man's mind but we do need to hear from you we want to hear the word of God that's why we have our Bibles that's why we are thinking these things out and we come in our need believing that you are more willing to bless and help us than we are even to take the time to ask you so we come as children to a father and great confidence and in your son's name we pray amen well I have a confession to make to begin with mm-hmm and that is that I have had a woman other than my wife on my mind now for I think about three weeks I don't want you to be alarmed by this because the woman is dead and I read about her in the Wall Street Journal and I would think that some of you did as well especially if you as I've exhorted you to do are careful to read the remembrance section to read the obituaries and to make relatively frequent visits to graveyards those of you who are hiding from these things of course will want to skip very quickly over the the pieces that confront us with the prospect of our death Society girl who spent eight decades in seclusion it was the eight decades in seclusion that caught my attention 80 years in seclusion miss Clark died Tuesday at 104 in a New York City Hospital where despite good health she had taken up residence more than 20 years ago so for 20 years she'd booked herself into a hospital paying for it of course and without had any need to actually be in the hospital at the hospital she pursued a passion for antique dolls but rarely saw visitors it's a strange picture isn't it an 80 year old woman amassing a collection of dolls sitting around in a hospital taking up space without any real need it was a solitary ending to the most privileged of life's if you read this article you know that she was the heiress to a vast fortune she married as a young woman quickly divorced and very quickly afterwards had gone into seclusion she lived in the largest apartment in New York City her father was phenomenally wealthy and copper and in other things and as time went by and he died she lived for a while her mother and then she lived alone she had a mansion in California that she never visited she had an estate in Connecticut where she never spent time she had no connection with any extended family members at all she lived all alone she died as it says an isolated life and in seclusion she left a fortune in the region of 500 million with no descendants and frankly I can't get her out of my mind to live for a hundred and four years and to do virtually nothing with the vast resource that was hers to disperse yesterday in the remembrance section it was Colombo if you read it the famous detective with the overcoat and the half-chewed cigar just one more thing I read that and I thought well he came he acted he laughed I'm not sure that the remembrance would convey everything but it sure conveyed nothing that gave one any reason to believe that his life was invested that the dashes between the dates the beginning date and the ending date had really been filled with something that was lasting worthwhile eternal in its significance and on Thursday night when I was with Fernando Ortega at an evangelistic event I was struck as he sang the song in the morning when I rise give me Jesus and in the evening when I go to sleep give me Jesus and then the thing that just struck me and I guess I just can't get this off my mind at the moment was when he sang the verse and when I come to die and when I come to die and when I come to die give me Jesus now I have no particular reason to have some kind of morbidity that is hanging over me no sense of kind of Shakespearean dust of death settling on my mind I guess it's maybe this that when we read the reformed pastor together as a group of elders one of the things that came across very forcibly was the fact that it is the responsibility of pastoral leadership to prepare the people under their care for their deaths a strange thing really when you think about it especially on a morning when we see all those little children on the screen when we are aware of all of the first flush of life the bloom of youth the opportunities of long summer days and so on that somebody would then stand up in the pulpit and do something so dreadful so taboo as to say you know folks I think I better talk to you this morning about the fact that all of us are about to die but we are and indeed none of us has figured out how to live until we have figured out how to die and that's why my text is essentially the 22nd verse of Hebrews 11 by faith Joseph when his end was near spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones it sounds like one of those texts that you get when you're a student at Theological College and it is assigned to you in a homiletics department and it arrives in your box and it says Hebrews 11 22 is your verse for next Tuesday please prepare a talk of twenty minutes and length to be delivered before your classmates and you take it away and you look at it what in the world are we going to say about Joseph near his end speaking about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and so on well I guess we're all about to find out when you look at a verse like that you say what is striking about it and what is striking about it is there's nothing really striking about it at all it is such an ordinary verse that it's almost extraordinary in its ordinariness and especially if you know anything of the story of Joseph if you know something of the life of Joseph and if you don't I commend the reading of it to you you just need to go back into Genesis a little way because he did have an extraordinary life he had a very peculiar beginning he was having those dreams you will recall coming down at breakfast it would seem and telling his dad and his brothers about how he dreamt that all the sheaves were bowing down to another sheave the big top sheaf and that he was the top sheaf and that all the planets and the stars were bowing down to him and I didn't put him in the best of graces with his brothers the fact that his father gave my special coat to wear didn't help either and eventually of course his brothers threatened first to kill him and then they sold them into slavery and the Ishmaelites carried him away some sorry afternoon and there he was stripped naked and on the block and finally purchased I am and called Potiphar and taken in enslavement into his home survived in the early days of that he's seduced by part of his wife he survives that but as a result of that he goes to jail he comes out of jail he rises to a position of prominence he's second in command in the entire Egyptian political sphere and at the end of the day he's reconciled to his brothers and he is restored to his father and then what well then there's essentially sixty years about which we know nothing the opening sentence of verse 22 of Genesis 50 covers 60 years of Joseph's life so if he died at 110 even I can do that that means that he had 50 about which we know a great deal and he had 60 about which we know virtually nothing the only thing we can say with confidence is that the first 50 despite all of their drama did not mean that the second 60 or the remaining 60 were absent the same convictions that had been built into his life as a younger man and that in itself is something important to notice isn't it because as we've often said to one another it is one thing to have a vibrant faith in this bedroom of opportunity and of difficulty and of challenge and it's quite another thing to live a life of faith in the days that are routine we might even say humdrum we might even say relatively dull now we can go as far as to say that he was retired at the age of 50 and he spent the last sixty you know doing very little but some of us are retired some of us are retired we don't over retire some of us had just are just living to retire apparently I can't imagine such a thing what the world are you planning on doing for goodness and what about the idea of being able to live life when the challenges of our early days and the difficulties that Martha's on the way up are no longer there in the case of Joseph he had stood the test of time because after all he had born an Egyptian title he had married an Egyptian wife he had enjoyed an Egyptian lifestyle but through it all he had never lost sight of who he was and of where he was heading the world will always make way for a man or a woman who knows who or he or she is and where he or she is going and Joseph is just such a man and what a man will be what a woman will be at the end of the days when we draw our knees up as it we're on to the bed and we finally breathe our last will really just be the cumulative expression of the convictions that have marked us on the way through and that is why no day is unimportant no decision is irrelevant no relationship is of passing fancy it all is part of the mosaic of what God is doing and then the experience of Joseph's life God was fashioning all these things the good and the bad and the ugly and putting them all together somebody asked me the other day in a church building where I was they said and there's a talk here apparently and and you're giving the talk I said yes they said what are you going to talk about I said well I think I'll talk about life the person said you mean you'll talk about the good the bad and the ugly well I hadn't planned on it but I said yes I think I'll do that she said well how are you planning on doing and I said well I'll tell you that God is good that we are bad and that is probably better not to continue on the ugly part well she found that fairly injury I'm not sure whether she came or she didn't come but the fact of the matter is that Joseph is an illustration of but he who had lived his life resting in God's purposes throughout all the good and the bad and the ugly and he finds his place in Hebrews 11 along with all of these other folks in the great gallery of faith as it where with all these paintings as you walk through the gallery with the various people on it Moses and Abraham and Gideon and so on and there you find Joseph as well and he like the rest is marked by somebody who is looking forward to his reward he is like the rest still living in faith when he dies still living in faith when he dies will you be living in faith when you die will I be living in faith when I die will you continue to the end and be saved will I continue to the end and be saved if as with Joseph all of the bewilderness parts all of the daunting parts all of the privileged parts were to be removed and we now live our lives in the routine humdrum of everyday existence will we still maintain our faith will we still read our Bibles will we still love God will we still tell others about him will we still attend worship will we still be engaged all the way to the very end will we be ready to die will we be seeing and when I come to die just give me Jesus I don't need this and I don't need that only Christ now the point is a simple one isn't it it's an obvious one but it is an important one namely that in the life of Jesus in this summary statement concerning his passing there is the forcible revelation of the fact that he wasn't living his life looking over his shoulder but he was living his life con Stanly looking forward every time I see a girl who's wearing braces I always say to the same thing I see you have braces they're usually embarrassed to close them off remove I said no no you don't have to hide it I said I love girls that wear braces then you get a big smile because they can't stop it so you get all it's all braces now and then I tell them and I'll tell you why I love girls that wear braces because they're always looking forward they're always looking forward I never met a girl that had braces that was that I had a ticket that said I began my braces on the 17th of February you know four and a half months ago no if you tell she always can say oh yes I have two months I have three months I have six months whatever else it is but they're always looking forward you can tell a lot about people from the direction in which they're looking the fearful look down the pessimist look down but the child of God lifts his eyes lifts her eyes and looks up and here we have him on his deathbed as it were where is he looking follow the direction of his gaze because you see there's nothing quite like death to bring clarity to the issues of life death changes everything death changes the significance we give to our job to our bank balance to everything and when we read the story of Joseph when we read the statement of his passing it becomes perfectly clear that he is not focused on himself he's not glorying in his past he is concerned only with the promises of God and with the purposes of God for his people if your Bible is open in Genesis 50 you can see that for yourself you can see that that's exactly what he's saying he wants his brothers to know first that he's about to die it's interesting isn't it because when you when you deal with people when they're dying most people who are dying refused to see what everybody else knows and that's why nobody can ever have the conversation it's very hard to have the conversation and so people say the most banal things well I see you're looking a lot better than last Tuesday are you kidding me why did you say that that's not true here's a self-awareness hey brothers just so you know I'm dying it was great it was very clarity in that isn't there because now now that he's faced his demise now we're going to find out from him what matters to them and he doesn't start to run through a list of who's getting his camels who's getting the stuff who's getting his jewelry who's getting the business you know no I am about to die but God but God I die God doesn't die I am about to die but God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land that he promised on oath to Abraham Isaac and Jacob now you'll notice that it repeats this almost immediately in verse 25 God will surely come to your aid so Joseph died at the age of 110 incidentally and in passing 110 was a significant number in the Egyptian mind I don't know that because I wasn't there because I read it and that is that extent Egyptian sources Chronicle a hundred and ten in terms of lifespan as being virtually the embodiment of what it meant to live a life that was full and rich and blessed if you made it to 110 it basically you got that you got a telegram from the Pharaoh as it were in Britain if you make it to a hundred you get a telegram from the Queen but in Egyptian life you got a telegram at a hundred and ten and so it's not insignificant that we're told here that he lived to be a hundred and ten and so the Egyptian people having observed the life of Joseph now in recognizing the death of Joseph as being at such a significant date would have attached significance to it as well and the significance for Joseph was that his departure should not snuff out in the minds of those he leaves behind the conviction which is undergirded his life to this point namely that God will come to your aid he is living proof of the fact that God would come to his aid God came to his aid in the arrival of the Ishmaelite traders when he was stuck down in the bottom of that cistern where he would have inevitably died as a result of the absence of food and water and so on God in the in the in the pagan Ishmaelites comes to the aid of Joseph and we could trace the line all the way through but it would be tedious to do so but now he simply says you better be assured of this that God will come to your aid and God will definitely take you up now the reason he says that is because he knows that God had made this promise to Abraham and to Isaac and to his father Jacob and he knows that God doesn't renege on his promises in other words Joseph is a believer so I want you to know that God will come to your aid he will take you up and I like you to take me up too he says don't leave me here I want to go as well and so you will notice verse 25 that he made the sons of Israel swear on oath that they would carry his bones up from the place and so Joseph died at the age of 110 and after they hadn't bombed him he was placed in a coffin in Egypt well you say that's pretty good I wonder how long that lasted for if you don't know the Bible you might be tempted to think that he said that on a Tuesday they left for the Promised Land a week from the following Thursday and everything fitted together perfectly no no do you know how long it took for the promise to be fulfilled from the time that Joseph made his brother swear that he would take they would take the bones up I shall tell you three centuries 300 years elapses before God through Moses friezes people from the bondage of Egypt and sends them out and on their way to the promised land it's quite a thought isn't it because what it means is that generation after generation after generation would have grown up saying when the world's going on here I thought we were going somewhere we are yeah well when are we leaving we don't know yet well what will it be like when we get there we're not sure about that either well why do you even think we're going because God said we're going well how do you know what God said because Abraham told us but he's dead yeah Isaac told us he's dead too this is your children speaking to you now you see what are you basing this on what feeling do you have what drama is it that gives you this conviction none at all none at all I am about to die God will come to your aid he will take you up keep my bones take them when you go 300 years goes by generations come and generations go sting in the promise of God nothing else they have nothing else to go on except that God said it now if you think about that in relationship to your death that's the exact same thing isn't it why do you believe that you will be gathered into the presence of God when you die because God has promised to come to our aid God has promised to take us up what conviction do we have that he will do so because every time he's made a promise in the Bible he has always fulfilled it he promised Abraham and he brought it to pass you can trace the line all the way through that's the conviction I had a I had a letter which adds again I suppose to this address this morning I had a letter when I came back on Friday night from somebody who wrote to me to say I have a dreadful problem with assurance in relationship to death I am so I'm so afraid that that when it finally comes to the crunch I won't be there at the right time or I won't be there in the right way or I won't be there by the right thing to say I want to tell that dear brother listen you'll be there because God promised what else do you have to go on see the Christian life is a life of faith isn't it why did you believe that your sins are forgiven because God promised to forgive our sins why do you believe that the Holy Spirit has now come to live in your life because he promised that he would why did you believe that he will take you safely to heaven because of his promise and all the time that the people were spending these decades after decades after decades they had they had with them the old box of bones the coffin I mean it's almost humorous isn't it you could imagine the Box getting more and more dilapidated with the passage of time and people every so often saying why don't we just get rid of that jolly thing I mean we've how long have we had it now sort of says we had our 185 years well I mean if it hasn't happened by now it isn't happening that's for sure so we might as well bury the thing you know you can't bury the thing why not because they promised yeah but they don't no they are not here they are long gone we don't have to deal with that you see there must always be people say hey wait a minute you can do that you mustn't do that when the majority says it doesn't matter when the people say you don't have to really believe that part you don't really have to hold on to that part no one really know if that part's significant God has is people always say no no you can't do that you must do this because of God's promise because of God's presence because of God's conviction in relationship to these things I determined that this says Paul should be entrusted to you because you become convinced of it because you know those from whom you've learned it and this that you have become convinced of this you must now pass on to the next generation you see what this is about is about leaving a legacy and most of us have the legacy thing completely wrong completely wrong it's all about money so all about houses it's all about annuities it's all about stuff loved ones the legacy that our children grandchildren great children and great great grandchildren need is the legacy of a life lived trusting the promises of God living in the principles of God's Word relying entirely on God's grace in such a way that the children that we then dandle on our knees as did Joseph on his old bony knees here will when we are long gone find things like I found something yesterday I'm yesterday I was a routing around day for me I don't know why I just was in a rooting around mood and I went in places I annoying my wife dreadfully but I went I went somewhere and I found a plac just an old slice of wood and then on the front I said have faith in God have faith in God so I pulled it out and I said I remember this from my house and then I turned it over and on the bag my name was written on it in a ballpoint pen in red Alister bag then I looked I said as my mother's handwriting I wonder why she wrote my name on the back of this but she did it was almost like a metaphor for me son on one hand they said Alastair Beck they turn it over he said have faith in God I turn it by you said Alastair have faith in God my mother's been dead for the last 39 years but her legacy remains I don't have a dime of her money I don't need it this is what counts now let me apply this as we draw to a close let me apply it in a couple of ways first of all let's just acknowledge that in a world that is afraid of death remember old Woody Allen it's not that I'm afraid to die it's just that I don't want to be there when it happens in a world that treats death in that way let's acknowledge that the Bible is the only place that we can go for a reasonable explanation says that the wages of sin is death the death came into the world as a result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve you remember on that occasion that the serpent tried to seduce them and it's no surprise that his approach went along these lines you will not surely die you will be as God we shouldn't do this because God said I don't worry about what God said he's just trying to spoil things for you he just knows that you you'll be right up there with him you won't die you'll be like God here we are today what's the story of our society don't worry you're not gonna die you'll be like God why is Hinduism making such an encroachment in Western culture because of the notions of reincarnation appealing to our sense of still holding on to something somehow or another it's not going to happen the Bible says no sorry as in Adam all die so in Christ we'll all be made alive the devil doesn't want us to think about dying because he knows that after we died we face the judgment of God in the judgment of God the question will be asked what did you do with my son the Lord Jesus Christ whom I offered to you as a salvation for your sin and for your fear of death and everything else what did you do the devil says not even worry about that that's not going to happen either but the Bible says that the day of judgment is a day that is fixed it is a day that will be absolutely fair and it is a day that will be absolutely final fixed fair final therefore it is the responsibility of pastoral leadership to say to the people under the care of that leadership my dear friends loved ones whatever else you've been making preparation for make preparation for this the promise of God through Joseph was that God would come and God would raise him up if you read your Bible backwards it's not difficult to see that that picture is finally fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus I am the bread of life who came down from heaven he who eats of me will never be hungry again and he who drinks of Me will never thirst and I will raise him up on the last day I will raise him up on the last day do you believe that to believe the gospel to believe the gospel is to put our faith and trust and confidence in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ as I left the airport on Friday afternoon I met a lady who'd been at the evangelistic event on Thursday evening at that evangelistic event I'd made reference to the three questions on the famous Gauguin painting where do we come from do then on the kiss song knew how long knew what are we and where are we going where do we come from what are we and where we go the lady was a lady with the uniform she was something to do with the the rigmarole of the airport she said to me I heard you last night I listened to the questions she said I don't have an answer for any one of those questions I don't have an answer for anyone why I was struck by our honesty she didn't try and fudge it where I come from I don't know what am i I don't know where am I going I don't know how do you sleep I'll tell you how you're sleep because the evil one comes and says to you it doesn't matter don't listen to beg and is more of a preoccupation with an old box of bones somewhere in the ancient history don't worry about that stuff you'll be out of here in a moment or two he's almost finished there's just a song to go and you can run out into the into your future you can be done with this in an instant that's the voice of that's the voice of darkness the voice of light is saying you should believe Christ you should take him at his word and you know what I find the best thing of all in this something that we didn't miss and that is that when you read the story not only of Joseph but all the way from the very beginning the God that we are introduced to is the God who takes the initiative it wasn't Abraham who was trying to find God it was God who came and intervened in Abraham's life God called him out of our other call DS Abram was just a fellow living and living as a pig in an opinion land and God said hey remember CS Lewis in his book on miracles when he says it's always kind of weird to find life where you aren't expecting it when you're playing burglars with your friends when you're small and you're hiding in closets and behind curtains and everything and all of a sudden there's a hush and somebody goes what was that and somebody else says I don't know what you think that was a real person and CS Lewis says that's what it's like that was what it was like when I was thinking about God when I was thinking about Christianity he said in the same way that the child wants instinctively to draw back he says I wanted to draw back as well as soon as I realized maybe there is a real and living God who's seeking me I wanted to pull out at that point quotes an impersonal God well and good a subjective god of beauty truth and goodness inside our heads better still but God Himself alive pulling at the other end of the cord that's quite another matter supposing we really found him supposing he came to find us Socrates who by all reports was really bright said all of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth all of the wisdom of the world is a tiny raft then he said if only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail perhaps some divine word the wisdom of the world the message of the gospel tiny raft unsinkable ship do you want to pile it signal then to Jesus do you want to pile it did him come on board and he can safely guide across the ocean white until at last you reach that heavenly harbor I will have failed you my colleagues will have failed you by speaking nice things to you on a nice Sunday in June when the compelling urgent call of God upon my heart is to say to you loved ones you're going to die and only Christ his resurrection and life trust in him trust only in him let us pray our gracious God we thank you that the gospel is vast enough that we can explore it for all of our lives and yet it is simple enough that our children that were at VBS this week are able to grasp it that you came from heaven as a helpless babe entered our world with your glory veiled you didn't come to be served but to serve you came to give your life as a ransom for many some of us Lord are freely in our lives away forgive us and help us that we might finish strong that we might run straight through the middle years that in the infancy of our days that we might give ourselves unreservedly to serve you whatever that means wherever it means in the arts and business and science and pastoral ministry and teaching and whatever it is that we might give ourselves thank you that in the Lord Jesus Christ we were born again to a Living Hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that all the things that were written in the past were written so that through the endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope a hope that is able to stand the test of time I hope that is able to deal with the despairing days of life a hope that is able to stand triumphant before our own grave here I saw God as we cry out to you from where we are in your son's name Amen

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Keywords: Alistair Begg, And When I Come To Die, Sermon, Biblical Exposition, Scripture, Preacher, Preaching, Joseph, Jesus Christ, Genesis 50:22, Hebrews 11:22, Legacy, Pulpit

Id: X390hUkXVqA

Length: 41min 28sec (2488 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 22 2013