How Do I Overcome My Fear of Death?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | The fear of death keeps people off jets and in cars, which is a more deadly form of transportation.
00:00:11.000 | The fear of death exerts tremendous force over people in this world. It makes us irrational.
00:00:17.000 | So what counsel do we have for Christians who live under a perpetual fear of their own mortality?
00:00:23.000 | The question arises from a woman who has not given us her name. Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:27.000 | I have listened to the podcast on YouTube for several months now and finally built up enough courage to ask a question of my own.
00:00:33.000 | I have been building a relationship with God and have thankfully been delivered from a love of alcohol.
00:00:38.000 | I am 25, married to a godly man, and have been struggling with the thought of death now on a daily basis.
00:00:47.000 | I think it started when my friend passed last year.
00:00:50.000 | Before that, a friend of mine and my sister, just months apart, both had dreams that I died while I was still drinking.
00:00:58.000 | By the grace of God, he allowed me to let go of that habit, but I can't stop thinking that something will happen to me.
00:01:05.000 | I decided to get to the root that I have a fear of death.
00:01:09.000 | All I sometimes think of is dark, depressing thoughts, and I do not want to live my life like this.
00:01:16.000 | Please, Pastor John, can you give me some insight?
00:01:19.000 | My experience over the years is that sometimes God delivers people from the bondage of fixations,
00:01:30.000 | like the fixation with the possibility of dying, in a roundabout way that seems surprising.
00:01:38.000 | So, if this seems roundabout, what I'm about to do, roundabout and jolting, hold on and at least give it consideration.
00:01:50.000 | I'm picking up first—she doesn't give us her name, so I'll just call her our friend—
00:01:57.000 | I'm picking up from our friend's wording that her view of God and His sovereignty over our lives,
00:02:06.000 | including when and how we die, may not be as biblical and as solid and as freeing as God means it to be.
00:02:16.000 | She says, for example, with regard to her former drinking problem,
00:02:21.000 | "By the grace of God, he allowed me to let go of that habit."
00:02:27.000 | Hmm. He allowed me to let go of that habit.
00:02:33.000 | Now, that kind of language, that allowing language in relation to God's work in our lives,
00:02:40.000 | sends alarm bells off in my mind that her view of God's sovereignty,
00:02:45.000 | God's rule over her personal life and over her willing and her actions, like drinking, are something like this.
00:02:55.000 | If God would just step aside, then I will let go of this habit.
00:03:02.000 | Now, she may not mean that, but sometimes the language we use speaks more deeply about what we believe than what we say we believe.
00:03:12.000 | She did say, "God allowed me to let go of that habit." Really?
00:03:18.000 | So the first thing I want to urge our anxious friend to celebrate
00:03:24.000 | is that God is way more actively involved in our habit-breaking than mere allowing or permitting.
00:03:33.000 | Hebrews 13.21 says, "He equips you with everything good to do his will,
00:03:41.000 | working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."
00:03:54.000 | Which means that God is fully able in his time, in his way, to take away not only the desire to drink,
00:04:06.000 | but the fear of death and the fixation on death.
00:04:11.000 | God is able not just to allow you to do it, but to do it decisively in and through you.
00:04:19.000 | Now, related to this view of God's sovereignty in delivering us from fixations in our minds
00:04:27.000 | is God's sovereignty over death itself, which is so crucial for, I think, our friend to grasp.
00:04:36.000 | I want our friend to see in God's Word that God has final and decisive control over how and when we die.
00:04:48.000 | This is true, even though Satan has some secondary role to play.
00:04:53.000 | He's not absolute. He's not decisive. He's not final. He's always on a leash.
00:05:00.000 | For example, when Job's ten children die in one day, Job says, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.
00:05:11.000 | Blessed be the name of the Lord," Job 1.21. "Blessed be the name of the Lord. He took my children away."
00:05:19.000 | And James says in James 4.15, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there,'
00:05:28.000 | instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live.'"
00:05:35.000 | "If the Lord wills, we will live."
00:05:41.000 | "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
00:05:47.000 | God decides if we live and do this or that.
00:05:52.000 | This has filled God's people with incredible courage and energy and joy over the centuries in very risky circumstances of ministry.
00:06:04.000 | Why? Because we are immortal until our Father decides to bring us home.
00:06:12.000 | Think of it. Immortal. Immortal. You are immortal. I wish I knew your name. I wish I could say it to Jane, Mary.
00:06:22.000 | You are immortal until God's work for you is done.
00:06:28.000 | You really will not die. You will not die until God intends for you to die.
00:06:35.000 | This is wonderful. I mean, where else would you rather rest than in this?
00:06:43.000 | You're not at the mercy of Satan. You are not at the mercy of nature.
00:06:48.000 | You are not at the mercy of man's cleverness or carelessness or evil.
00:06:53.000 | You are rock solid secure in God's omnipotent hands, and you will not die except at his decision.
00:07:06.000 | Where else would you want that decision to lie?
00:07:12.000 | He is your all wise, all knowing, all merciful Father, which leads Jesus to say these sweetest of all words.
00:07:23.000 | Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
00:07:28.000 | Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
00:07:33.000 | And then ironically, after telling us to fear God, here's what he really means by that.
00:07:38.000 | Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father?
00:07:46.000 | But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
00:07:50.000 | Picture your father leaning over you asleep in your crib, counting your hairs.
00:07:54.000 | He says no problem for him. Start over, verse 30.
00:07:58.000 | But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not.
00:08:02.000 | Therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
00:08:08.000 | Fearless, fearless, fearless. And he's good. He's your father.
00:08:14.000 | Jesus died. Jesus died to secure Romans 8, 28 and Romans 8, 32, Romans 8, 37 for his sinful children.
00:08:26.000 | Sinful children. All things work together for good.
00:08:30.000 | Death cannot separate us from the love of Christ.
00:08:33.000 | Everything we need in life and death was bought by the blood of Jesus.
00:08:38.000 | So Paul says, "To live is Christ. To live is Christ, and to die is gain."
00:08:44.000 | So here's my counsel to our anxious friend and the rest of us.
00:08:49.000 | Instead of trying to stop thinking about death every time that thought comes into your head,
00:08:56.000 | instead of trying to stop thinking about death, instead say to death, "Go ahead, death. Make my day.
00:09:06.000 | If you let me live, Christ will be honored on earth in my life.
00:09:12.000 | If you take away my life, I get more of Christ in heaven. I can't lose."
00:09:21.000 | And then get on with your work. Make a meal, vacuum a rug, close a real estate deal, give a flu shot.
00:09:29.000 | Go about your daily life with a totally happy uncertainty about when you will die.
00:09:36.000 | Amen. Immortal until God's work for me is done.
00:09:40.000 | Thank you, Pastor John. That's a great perspective. So good. Thank you.
00:09:43.000 | Well, we are now over 1,200 episodes into this podcast, and we have 30 episodes on death and dying even.
00:09:50.000 | And we're going to look back today, and all of those episodes are easy to browse and search and find in our archive online.
00:09:55.000 | It's DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:59.000 | There you can explore all of the topics that we've covered in those 1,200 episodes,
00:10:03.000 | and you can scan through a list of our most popular episodes of all time.
00:10:06.000 | It's a list that's updated every day, and you can read full transcripts, even send us a question of your own,
00:10:11.000 | all from DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:10:15.000 | And, of course, you can get new episodes delivered to you each week three times per week
00:10:20.000 | by subscribing to Ask Pastor John and your favorite podcast player.
00:10:24.000 | I am not sure what's up next time, but Lord William will be back on Friday with another of your very excellent questions.
00:10:29.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and on behalf of John Piper, we'll see you then.
00:10:33.000 | [End of Audio]
00:10:35.000 | DesiringGod.org
00:10:38.000 | Pastor John Piper
00:10:41.000 | you