Amusing Ourselves from Death
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Amusing Ourselves to Death.
00:00:06.980 | That was the great title to a book written by Neil Postman
00:00:11.200 | and published in 1985, Amusing Ourselves to Death.
00:00:16.200 | Maybe you've heard of it or even read it.
00:00:18.120 | It's a great title.
00:00:19.680 | It was a great title before the digital age
00:00:21.920 | and it's a great title for the digital age
00:00:24.320 | and I'm gonna borrow that title for this episode
00:00:26.880 | with one change.
00:00:28.280 | Amusing Ourselves from Death.
00:00:32.080 | Today's theme in a clip from a John Piper sermon
00:00:34.400 | preached in the summer of 1996.
00:00:37.520 | And before we get into it,
00:00:38.520 | here's a little context for the sermon
00:00:40.240 | and why eternal realities were especially on the forefront
00:00:43.120 | of Pastor John's mind at the time.
00:00:45.120 | Evangelist Billy Graham was in Minneapolis
00:00:47.560 | for a five-night rally.
00:00:49.520 | By then, Graham was, I think, 77 years old or so.
00:00:52.900 | He spoke for a week in the Metrodome,
00:00:56.440 | which was just steps away from Bethlehem Baptist Church.
00:00:59.320 | It was a huge gathering, well-attended.
00:01:01.800 | Local reports put attendance for the final evening
00:01:04.360 | right around 100,000 people in attendance.
00:01:07.940 | All of that was happening the same week
00:01:09.840 | as this sermon from John Piper
00:01:12.200 | and it's why he'll mention the dome in a little bit.
00:01:15.220 | With that, here's Pastor John in June of 1996.
00:01:19.360 | - Death is sad
00:01:25.320 | and death is terrifying
00:01:27.840 | if there's a holy, just God
00:01:32.840 | who's gonna call everybody to account.
00:01:34.520 | If you don't believe in God, if there is no God,
00:01:38.560 | and death is simply the end of a long summer,
00:01:43.360 | it's just sad.
00:01:45.320 | It's sad.
00:01:46.600 | The reason it's sad is because life, as we know it,
00:01:49.600 | in this world, is the basis of everything
00:01:52.280 | that makes us happy, family, friends,
00:01:56.480 | leisure, food, sex, job, work, meaning.
00:02:01.480 | If you don't have life, you got none of that
00:02:04.800 | and to lose that feels sad, but it doesn't feel terrifying.
00:02:08.680 | It's not terrifying to fall asleep thinking,
00:02:13.520 | you never wake up, it's over.
00:02:16.380 | No consciousness ever again.
00:02:18.760 | That's not terrifying.
00:02:20.740 | It's sad to lose things that you know,
00:02:24.040 | but it's not terrifying to go to sleep
00:02:26.040 | and never wake up again.
00:02:27.320 | Zero consciousness.
00:02:28.880 | But if there's a holy, just God of truth
00:02:34.800 | who has a law, who has a glory,
00:02:38.460 | and we will one day give an account to that God
00:02:42.680 | and we will render good or evil
00:02:46.360 | for everything good or evil we've ever done
00:02:48.920 | or he will render that to us,
00:02:51.200 | then death is terrifying if we're not right with God.
00:02:56.200 | The existence of God in relationship to death
00:03:02.420 | is a terrifying thing.
00:03:05.760 | This text says it's a slave master
00:03:09.100 | if you're afraid of death.
00:03:10.620 | And it says in verse 14 that everybody
00:03:13.440 | has been held in bondage all their life long
00:03:16.520 | by the fear of death.
00:03:19.000 | And I thought about that.
00:03:21.000 | A lot of people would deny that.
00:03:23.540 | A lot of people who don't believe in God
00:03:26.700 | would say, we're not afraid.
00:03:30.640 | We are not living a life of bondage.
00:03:32.840 | I mean, look at us.
00:03:34.000 | Do we look like we're in bondage?
00:03:36.280 | We're the freest of all people,
00:03:38.200 | doing what we want to do.
00:03:40.140 | What in the world do you mean
00:03:41.720 | that everybody is held in slavery and bondage
00:03:45.480 | by the fear of death?
00:03:46.480 | I don't even, what are you talking about?
00:03:49.240 | Where's this verse coming from?
00:03:50.840 | Here's what I think it is implying.
00:03:55.560 | I think even people who don't believe in God
00:03:59.960 | and who on the surface are not feeling terrified
00:04:04.280 | are subconsciously ruled by the fear of death
00:04:09.240 | one way or the other.
00:04:12.600 | It's a silent slave master.
00:04:16.200 | One of its main forms of slavery
00:04:20.280 | is by putting you in the dream world of denial.
00:04:24.840 | Now you don't experience it this way,
00:04:27.880 | but the way you can tell if you're in it or not
00:04:31.000 | is by what you are willing to think about much.
00:04:35.720 | Denial of the death that terrifies,
00:04:39.760 | manifests itself in all kinds of ways of escaping
00:04:44.760 | from having to think long or much
00:04:47.480 | about your mortality and about your death.
00:04:51.600 | It's one thing that Americans
00:04:54.320 | will not let themselves think long about
00:04:57.280 | and therefore we surround ourselves
00:04:59.360 | with all kinds of distractions and narcotics
00:05:02.920 | to escape from what we know we'd be afraid of
00:05:06.920 | if we thought about it
00:05:07.840 | and therefore it is ruling us from underneath.
00:05:11.120 | I thought of this analogy,
00:05:12.280 | it's like the cruise control on our station wagon
00:05:16.040 | doesn't work, but I know what cruise controls are for.
00:05:19.800 | The fear of death is like a cruise control in the soul
00:05:26.160 | and it is set roughly at 55 miles an hour
00:05:30.920 | of contentment and ease.
00:05:34.600 | Now, if something begins to happen in your life
00:05:38.880 | where your life begins to slow down
00:05:41.920 | to a pace of pensiveness and reflection
00:05:46.920 | and thoughtfulness and big reality
00:05:52.320 | start to come into your consciousness
00:05:56.360 | and you start to ask some big significant questions,
00:06:00.480 | that cruise control is gonna bump that baby
00:06:02.720 | back up to 55 in a big hurry
00:06:06.080 | so that you don't have to get into thinking about
00:06:09.320 | and dealing with those big thoughts that you can have
00:06:13.560 | when your life slows down to a restful pace,
00:06:16.720 | it's late at night, it's quiet,
00:06:18.840 | the stars are out, the kids are asleep
00:06:22.040 | and you start to ask the big questions.
00:06:25.400 | The fear of death, not even consciously,
00:06:28.280 | said, quick, turn it on, turn it on,
00:06:30.760 | get the volume up, get moving, start doing something.
00:06:34.640 | Can't deal with that, that's what,
00:06:37.160 | then it works the other way.
00:06:39.040 | Sometimes God in his common graces
00:06:42.680 | and we've all experienced this,
00:06:44.800 | moves into your heart and begins to rev up
00:06:48.200 | your inquisitive motor and you start to inquire and think
00:06:53.200 | and it's a kind of a new day and you buy books
00:06:55.920 | and you pursue and you wanna know how to solve mysteries
00:06:59.440 | and it's not the same reflective atmosphere
00:07:02.200 | that I was talking about a minute ago,
00:07:03.640 | it's energy, it's inquiry, it's pursuit
00:07:06.640 | because there's something vital out there you know
00:07:09.640 | and at that 65, 75 mile an hour,
00:07:13.400 | you might in fact find it and so,
00:07:16.560 | the cruise control takes the foot off the accelerator,
00:07:19.840 | brings you back down to the ease and comfort of 55,
00:07:23.360 | the TV's just right, the leisure is just right,
00:07:26.760 | the family's just right, the work is just right
00:07:29.040 | and you don't need to ask any of those questions
00:07:31.120 | or make any of that pursuit.
00:07:33.080 | This is what I think the writer here means when he says,
00:07:38.080 | "We are being held in bondage all our life long
00:07:43.320 | "by the fear of death."
00:07:47.200 | There's a slavery, everybody who does not come to terms
00:07:52.160 | in reality with God, with sin, with guilt,
00:07:57.440 | with punishment, with death and with hell.
00:08:01.080 | If you don't come to term with those realities,
00:08:04.160 | you must be in denial.
00:08:06.760 | You must be living a life governed subconsciously
00:08:10.320 | or perhaps consciously.
00:08:11.520 | Some of you know what it's like to live
00:08:13.400 | in horrible anxieties consciously all the time.
00:08:17.120 | So whether subconsciously or consciously,
00:08:19.800 | this Romans 2.13, 2.15 says that the law of God
00:08:27.360 | is written on every human heart,
00:08:30.680 | your conscience bearing witness with that law,
00:08:34.720 | either condemning or affirming.
00:08:37.280 | So that I, on the authority of the Bible
00:08:39.520 | that Billy Graham holds up,
00:08:41.560 | and he seems to get a lot of approval,
00:08:44.320 | that same Bible says everybody in this room,
00:08:47.920 | everybody that will go to the dome tonight
00:08:50.480 | or has been there, has the law of God
00:08:53.320 | written across your heart and it is damning you
00:08:58.040 | or affirming you according to whether
00:09:02.120 | you are right with God.
00:09:05.040 | And if you're not right with God,
00:09:07.040 | that law written there is going to make you a slave
00:09:12.040 | to the fear of death.
00:09:16.400 | Sobering.
00:09:17.240 | Yeah, the distracted heart,
00:09:18.400 | the heart distracted away from eternity
00:09:20.600 | is a perennial problem, a problem as old
00:09:22.680 | as the parable of the four soils.
00:09:24.960 | And this clip was taken from John Piper's sermon
00:09:27.040 | preached on June 23rd, 1996, titled
00:09:29.800 | Jesus is able to help those who are tempted.
00:09:33.400 | You can find the whole message at desiringgod.org.
00:09:36.400 | Well, we have talked on the podcast about Satan.
00:09:41.720 | Not a lot, we don't fixate on him,
00:09:44.760 | but we do talk about his designs.
00:09:46.520 | And usually when we do, we look at what Satan cannot do
00:09:49.680 | to us, to us Christians.
00:09:52.120 | But what can he do to us believers?
00:09:56.200 | That too is an important topic and it's up next time.
00:09:59.200 | I'm your host, Timothy Reike,
00:10:00.480 | and we are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:10:03.440 | We'll see you then.
00:10:04.400 | (upbeat music)
00:10:07.000 | (upbeat music)
00:10:09.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]