79 Sermon Illustrations on Fear Of Death

“I’m not scared of dyin,’ and I don’t really care. If it’s peace you find in dyin,’ well then let the time be near.” -- “When I Die,” Blood, Sweat, and Tears, 1969

There’s the rub. Is it peace you find in dying, or something more? Our sometimes bluff attitude towards death makes too little of its inevitability and finality. Death is cause for healthy fear and respect.

The sting of death is sin, we’re told in 1 Corinthians 15:56. Sin is the first cause of death and the reason death is as ubiquitous as sin. As such we dread it rightly. Those outside of Christ dread it because their own faith leaves them uncertain as to their eternal state before the god they worship. Many know in their hearts they are unprepared to meet the God they have denied their whole lives. Death for them is accountability for a life lived in godlessness.

For Christians, the matter is still monumental. While we can have confidence in our eternal destiny, much of what will occur after death is unknown to us. Additionally, the process of dying often is fearsome. Even the pain and decline of aging shows the consequences of sin in gritty and stark ways. None of it is for wimps.

We must say, though, that death and dying is generally a “good news, bad news” thing for mankind.

The good news is that our experience of physical mortality is of limited duration. Physical death is a gift from God when you consider that the alternative is eternal life in a fallen and declining condition. Corrupt man collects a lot of bumps and bruises over the course of a normal life. Imagine the collection of scuffs and wounds we would collect if we lived another 100 or 1,000 years! It’s not a pretty thought.

I’ve attended more than a few funerals where the joy of the departed person’s new life far exceeded the sense of loss. This friend had a degenerative nerve disease, this grandfather crippling respiratory problems, that grandmother the effects of multiple strokes -- all made new after their souls were freed from malfunctioning bodies. Christians have a comfort in not only the hope of heaven but also in the best kind of healing for someone they love.

The bad news is that most people miss both the comfort and the hope. Health concerns aside, after a life lived on a man’s own terms, things get so complicated as to be incomprehensible -- and unpleasant.

Corruption and rebellion conspire together to make this life untenable. And yet we’re foolish to believe eternal life is in no way connected to our mortal one. Lost men find themselves with one foot on a rotting, collapsing dock and the other on a burning boat.

You’ve heard the expression “whistling past the graveyard” to describe someone who feigns unconcern regarding something he truly fears. The song I quoted at the top is an example of that. To those lost men I say “Yes, fear death! Fear the Lord who judges the living and the dead. You will certainly fear Him when you face Him. It’s better to face Him now.”

To you Christians who read this, listen to a culture that speaks foolishly of ultimate things. Watch those who twitch and fidget at Grandma’s funeral. There is no solution to their fear but the Gospel we bear. Remember that we will all die either in terror or in bright anticipation of the God we all will meet.

Our churches don’t give as much attention to the doctrine of man’s eternal state as the Bible does. A look at heaven will salt our imaginations so we more earnestly seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Learning about hell will fill our hearts with gratitude for our great salvation. It also should make us pity those for whom the despair of this life is only a foretaste of their eternal state. How can we, believing what we say we believe, be uncaring about the fate of our neighbors?

I believe it’s all real. Yes, heaven and hell are states wherein we are in the presence of or separated from God. That state of existence begins here in small ways that seem very big to our sensibilities. But they are also real places where resurrected bodies will dwell for eternity. These bodies will have substance, as Jesus’ body did, and likely will have some ability to sensually perceive the experience of their surroundings.

As great as that sounds to those of us who are bound for glory, it is proportionally bad for those who are not. The Bible uses burning to describe the torture of hell. I believe this conveys the worst kind of pain the human body can experience. How much more serious could this warning be to us all? Do we believe in hell as literally as we believe in heaven? In the Bible, the reality of condemnation and reward are inseparable. Our convictions regarding one should not differ in degree from our convictions about the other.

Our Savior has taken the sting out of death for us. Our bodies will die but our souls and resurrected bodies will forever experience the completeness of life. Most of our neighbors, however, grieve without hope. They whistle past the graveyard.

I believe this is something about which God cares very much. So must we.

________

Gary Ledbetter is editor of the Southern Baptist Texan (www.texanonline.net), newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Bono thinks a lot about death. The U2 singer’s preoccupation with his own mortality was triggered by the deaths of two musician friends and some near misses of hi sown. “The loss of David Bowie affected me profoundly,” says Bono, 57. “And Leonard Cohen.” Both singers were showered with glowing tributes after their deaths; Bono, who is mocked by non-fans as a sanctimonious, save-the-world celebrity, is worried he won’t be given such a warm send-off.

“At your funeral, nobody talks about what you achieved,” he sys. “They talk about whether you were funny or not. Were you kind to your kids? So I’m moving away from worrying too much about legacy, as regards U2 or my own work, to be more concerned about what my kids and friends think of me.”

Recently, he says, he’s taken a few “attempted knockout punches,” including a serious bicycle crash in 2014 that left him with a broken arm, eye socket, hand, and should; that and other brushes with death he won’t discuss have left Bono questioning his Christian faith. “Belief is preposterous, but I have it, and I thought, ‘I’m experiencing fear!’ It was near, and I realized I don’t want to die. I want to spend more time with my kids. There are songs I want to write, stuff I can be useful for. Then, when I admitted I was afraid, my faith returned.”

As I walked into the hospital, I looked on a visitation card at the name of the man who had requested that I visit him. He was dying of cancer and wanted me to come and pray with him. I was honored to do so.

When I walked into his hospital room, I was taken aback by his appearance. His body was thin. His skin was darkened. His teeth were shattered. All of this was the result of endless rounds of chemotherapy. Yet in spite of all the doctors could do, Jim was dying.

He was on the brink of eternity. He knew he was going to heaven but he was still afraid. He said, “Pastor, I know I am saved. I know that when I die, I’ll go to heaven. But I’m afraid. I’ve never died before. I’m afraid of what death will be like. Can you help me?”

We talked about what happens when a Christian dies. We talked about how his spirit and soul would soon leave his body and go directly to God’s presence in heaven. Then the Lord gave me a thought to share with Jim that I’d never shared before.

I said, “Jim, when I was young, I was afraid of the dark, especially any dark area in our house. I remember coming home at night with my family. My father knew about my fear of darkness. So, every time we came home, my dad would unlock and open the door, go inside and turn the light on. Then he’d turn around and say, ‘Come on in, Steve, everything’s fine.’ I remember walking into our house in total peace because I knew that I could trust my father to take care of me. I didn’t have to be afraid.”

Then I said, “Jim, when Jesus came to this earth, He lived a sinless life so He could die for our sins. He gave His life as an atoning sacrifice for God’s children and then He was buried. But three days later, Jesus walked out of that grave with the keys to death, hell and the grave itself in His hand. Jim, Jesus unlocked the door of eternity, went into the grave and turned the lights on for you. Now He’s saying, ‘Jim, come on in, everything is fine.’”

By this time, Jim and I were both crying. In fact, I’m fighting back tears as I write this article. Jim said, “Pastor, I get it! I can see Jesus opening the door for me! He’s turning the light on for me! He’s saying, ‘Come on in, Jim, everything is fine.’ Jesus is the Light of the world! He’s turned the light on in my grave! I can die without fear! Thank you, pastor, for helping me.”

We prayed and I left. A few days later, Jim stepped out of this life into eternal life. And Jesus was there waiting for him with the lights on.

That’s all possible because Jesus died and rose bodily, victoriously and eternally from the grave.

The apostle Paul said that one day every Christian will die. Each of us will shed this earthly body and our spirit and soul will enter eternity. This perishable shall put on the imperishable. This mortal shall put on immortality. At that moment we won’t fear the grave any longer because Jesus has conquered it! Death is swallowed up in His victory!

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:53-57: “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?’ 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (NASB).

Jesus removed the sting of death when He walked into the grave and defeated its power. He turned the light on and says to us, “All is well! Come on in!”

That’s why I love Easter. It shouts loudly that because of a bloody cross and an empty tomb we can have what the modern hymn says: “No guilt in life, no fear in death!”

________

Steve Gaines is president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee.

Pastor Jeff Strite heard a great story about Lazarus. It told of a time in Lazarus’ life when he’d grown old. All through his life Lazarus had told and retold the story of his resurrection. The Roman Emperor at that time was the cruel and evil Caligula. He ruled with an iron fist, relying on executions to keep himself in power. “They do not have to love me,” Caligula said, “as long as they fear me.” He kept the people in fear of their deaths by his hand.

But there was a new faith in Rome, a faith that Caligula grew to hate. These Christians had a faith in a God that caused them to not be afraid of death. And one of the most powerful preachers of this faith was Lazarus. Soon, Lazarus’ stories reached Caligula’s throne and he decided to make an example of him.

He brought Lazarus before him in chains and demanded: “Renounce your faith in this Christ!” But Lazarus refused. In anger, Caligula shouted, “If you don’t renounce your faith, I’ll have you put to death.” For a moment Lazarus said nothing ... then he began to laugh.

Caligula became even more angry and shouted, “Don’t you realize I have the power of life and death! I have the power to put you to death!” But Lazarus only laughed longer and louder.

Then finally he looked at the emperor and said, “You cannot hold me in fear, Caligula - death is dead!”

That’s a great story! Unfortunately, it’s not true. It’s a fictional account of Lazarus’ life found in a play by Eugene O’Neill called, “Lazarus Laughed.”

Pastor Strite was bummed out when he found it was fiction. But then he realized that the truth about this story of Lazarus was even more powerful than he had realized at first. Eugene O’Neill, one of the leading playwrights of the 20th century, was an unbeliever, a humanist who refused to accept the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

But even this atheist was struck by the power of the Biblical story of Lazarus. He said of his play, “Certainly it contains the highest writing I have done. Certainly, I know of no play like ‘Lazarus’ at all, and I know of no one who can play ‘Lazarus’ at all - the lead, I mean. Who can we get to laugh as one would laugh who had completely lost, even from the depths of the unconscious, all traces of the Fear of Death?” [1]

Think about it. Even in this atheist, there was an understanding of the power of Lazarus being raised from dead. Even though he rejected Christ, O’Neill understood the central message of this story.

Death had been defeated. Christ has offered us the promise of life and the hope of resurrection. It was an atheist who wrote Lazarus’ defiant cry: “You cannot hold me in fear - death is dead!”

The sad thing is, even as powerful a statement as that didn’t sway O’Neill from his atheism. He was “almost persuaded” of the promises of Christ. But almost wasn’t enough. Eugene O’Neill went to his grave without ever laying hold of the promise that Jesus offered, the promise of life from the dead.

“Almost” persuaded is not enough.

As the old invitation hymns says:

‘Almost’ cannot avail;

‘Almost’ is but to fail!

Sad, sad, that bitter wail -

‘Almost,’ but lost!

________

1. http://www.eoneill.com/library/contour/triumvirate2/lazarus.htm

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #12789]

Watch out. They’re coming. And if they bite you, you’ll soon be joining them -- after you die an agonizing death, reanimate and become one of the “undead.”

I’m talking about zombies, of course. You can find them stumbling around looking for their next human snack in countless comics, books, computer games and movies. “The Walking Dead,” one of the most popular shows on TV, follows the grim adventures of survivors of the zombie apocalypse as they fight off hordes of mindless-but-hungry creatures in Georgia. No wisecracks, please; that’s my home state.

How did zombies become so big all of a sudden? It’s not all that sudden. George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” the low-budget movie that started the flesh-eating zombie craze, oozed onto theater screens in 1968. In fact, zombies entered American pop culture long before that. American soldiers who occupied Haiti in the 1920s brought back fearful tales of dead men working the fields, controlled by evil voodoo masters -- part superstition, part folklore emerging from the brutal Caribbean legacy of slavery. “White Zombie,” starring Bela Lugosi (the original movie Dracula), came out in 1932.

There are any number of theories floating around about why folks are fascinated with zombies, ranging from our timeless appetite for scary stories to heavy-duty dissertations analyzing our fear of global pandemics, terrorism, world-ending wars and even the dehumanizing effects of consumer culture.

But there’s a deeper and more universal human fear underlying the zombie obsession: our dread of death itself. And what comes after.

“The zombie’s horror is that he is ... a slave forever,” culture commentator Russell Moore wrote in a Baptist Press column last year. “After all, if even death cannot free you, you can never be free. That’s exactly the point, and here’s why it should matter to Christians. Zombies are horrifying not simply because they’re mean and aggressive. They’re horrifying because they represent what ought to repulse us: the rotting decay of death. But they still walk. And beyond that, they still crave. ... [T]hey are driven along by their appetites, though always under the sway of a slave master’s will. That’s our story” -- the story, in other words, of fallen human beings enslaved by sin and death.

No matter how hard our youth-obsessed culture tries to convince us otherwise, we know death is coming. I appreciated the honesty of actress Valerie Harper, whose recent announcement that she has incurable brain cancer brought a national wave of sympathy. “We’re all terminal,” she responded to well-wishers in one interview. “And we have a lot of fear [about] death.”

To allay that fear, secularists and pop spirituality hucksters assure us there are no such things as heaven, hell or a God who will judge our sins in view of eternity. We know deep down they are wrong, but many of us go along with the charade or fail to challenge it. It’s a comforting fiction for folks who reject or redefine biblical truth. It won’t be very comforting on Judgment Day.

Then there are the millions who ignore death (and any other serious subject) altogether. They also tend to ignore their own souls and consciences. They “live” for the moment -- like zombies. Perhaps you have noticed this tendency among those who have turned themselves over to technology, one of our contemporary false gods. Psychiatrist Keith Ablow described one of the worst manifestations of this form of idolatry in an article about the Ohio teens who stood by and watched, even taking and posting pictures and videos, as a female classmate rendered helpless by alcohol was sexually assaulted for hours:

“Having watched tens of thousands of YouTube videos with bizarre scenarios unfolding, having tweeted thousands of senseless missives of no real importance, having watched contrived ‘reality TV’ programs in which people are posers in false dramas about love or lust or revenge, having texted millions of times, rather than truly connecting, and having lost their real faces to the fake life stories of Facebook, they look upon the actual events of their lives with no more actual investment and actual concern and actual courage than they would look upon a fictional character in a movie. They are absent from their own lives and those of others. They are floating free in a virtual world where nothing really matters other than being cool observers of their own detached existence....”

What a pathetic way to waste a life, which is intended by God to prepare us for eternity.

Evil takes ever-changing forms, but it comes from two ancient sources: sin and death. Only one Person has defeated both. Jesus knew His beloved friend Lazarus was dead before He reached Bethany, as the story is told in the Gospel of John, chapter 11. Lazarus’ sisters had sent word, begging Jesus to hurry to the village to heal their ill brother. But He delayed His arrival. By the time He got there, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.

“Jesus said, ‘Remove the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’ When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:39-44, NASB).

Jesus had authority over death, and He glorified His Father by raising Lazarus. On Easter morning, God glorified Himself by raising Jesus. At that moment, the power of sin and death was crushed for all time. For all who believe and follow Him, there is no longer any reason to fear death -- or what follows. What follows is eternity in the presence of God.

Our zombified world desperately needs that message.

While Col. Osterhaus was gallantly attacking the centre of the enemy, at Pittsburg Landing, a sergeant of the Twelfth Missouri requested the captain of his company to send his wife's portrait, which he had taken from his bosom, to her address in St. Louis, with his dying declaration, that he thought of her in his last moments. "What is that for?" asked the captain. "You are not wounded, are you?" — "No," answered the sergeant; "but I know I shall be killed to-day. I have been in battle before; but I never felt as I do now. A moment ago, I became convinced my time had come; but how I cannot tell. Will you gratify my request? Remember I speak to you as a dying man." — "Certainly, my bravo fellow; but you will live to a good old age with your wife. Do not grow melancholy over a fancy or a dream." — "You will see," was the response. The picture changed hands. The sergeant stepped forward to the front of the column, and the captain saw him no more. At the campfire that evening, the officer inquired for the sergeant. He was not present. He had been killed three hours before by a grape-shot from one of the enemy's batteries.

”Wherefore should I die, being so rich?” said Cardinal Beaufort. “If the whole realm would save my life, I am able either by policy to get it or by riches to buy it. Will not death be bribed? Will money do nothing?”

A child of God who was seriously ill and lacked assurance of salvation said to his physician, “Doctor, although I’m a Christian, I’m afraid to die. Exactly what happens to us in the hour of death?” The surgeon, who was also a believer, thought for a moment and then replied, “I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact answer to that question!” As he walked across the room to leave, he desperately wished he could say something comforting. Pausing briefly before opening the door, he heard the sound of scratching and whining on the other side. Suddenly he realized that he had left his car window open and his little dog had jumped out.

With the patient’s permission he let in his pet poodle who leaped on him with an eager show of gladness. In a flash the doctor’s mind was awakened to a scriptural truth he had never before put into words. Turning to the sick man, he said, “Did you see how my dog acted? He’s never been in this room before. He had no idea what was inside; yet when I opened the door, he sprang in without fear, for he knew his master was here! As Christians we have not been told about the glories that await us on the other side of death. But one thing we do know; our Master is there, and that is enough!

For most people, Aldous Huxley, is remembered as the author of the classic dystopian novel, “Brave New World.” But among devotees of hallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD, Mescaline, and “magic mushrooms,” Huxley is also known as the author of “The Doors of Perception.”

In that book, Huxley chronicles his experience after ingesting mescaline, the psychoactive ingredient in peyote. As anyone who lived through the Sixties might expect, these experiences include what he believed was an enhanced appreciation of music and the visual arts. Thanks to mescaline, Huxley “understood” that Vermeer “was truly gifted with the vision that perceives the Dharma-Body as the hedge at the bottom of the garden.”

If that seems less-than-helpful-or-clear to you, then you can imagine what went through my mind as I read a recent article in the New York Times about hallucinogens and terminally-ill patients. Did you see it?

The lead told the story of a 55-year-old “upbeat, articulate and dignified” woman who was told that she had terminal colon cancer and between six and fourteen months to live. Like many people who receive this kind of terrible news, she fought back: She never stopped running even as her cancer treatments were taking their toll. And these exertions may have helped her to outlive the initial prognosis by nearly three years.

But the one thing her efforts couldn’t overcome was her fear of death. The longer she lived, the more anxious and depressed she became about her impending death. The question “when?” dominated her and her husband’s life.

So, her doctor prescribed magic mushrooms. More precisely, he administered doses of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in these mushrooms, to her and other terminally-ill patients. The idea was that perhaps the hallucinogen would enable terminally-ill patients to see their impending death in a new way — as one researcher put it, through the carefully administered use of these drugs patients may see death in a “new light.” The experience might “promote introspection” and provide patients with “grounding.”

If that sounds, well, religious to you, you are not alone. Listen, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be told that you only have months to live — it’s hard enough to deal with the news of a loved one’s impending death, as I recently have done. So, I will not begrudge a dying person’s grasping for relief from this unimaginable burden.

What I will do is to note that researchers are using drugs to mimic — that’s the word that best fits here — the effects of faith, especially Christian faith. For Christians, our natural fear of death is overcome, not by a drug, but by faith in the risen Christ. Just as death no longer has any hold over Jesus, it no longer has any hold over us.

This is not a matter of perception — it’s a matter of fact. As the apostle Paul told the Corinthians, if God did not raise Jesus from the dead, our faith is in vain. It doesn’t get more fact-based than that.

None of this makes death — either our own or that of a loved one — any less painful. Christians believe that death is an enemy. But it’s an enemy God, through Christ, will destroy. That’s the source of our hope — hope that no pill can ever mimic.

________

Copyright (c) 2012 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #2936]

A child of God who was seriously ill and lacked assurance of salvation said to his physician, “Doctor, although I’m a Christian, I’m afraid to die. Exactly what happens to us in the hour of death?” The surgeon, who was also a believer, thought for a moment and then replied, “I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact answer to that question!” As he walked across the room to leave, he desperately wished he could say something comforting. Pausing briefly before opening the door, he heard the sound of scratching and whining on the other side. Suddenly he realized that he had left his car window open and his little dog had jumped out.

With the patient’s permission he let in his pet poodle who leaped on him with an eager show of gladness. In a flash the doctor’s mind was awakened to a scriptural truth he had never before put into words. Turning to the sick man, he said, “Did you see how my dog acted? He’s never been in this room before. He had no idea what was inside; yet when I opened the door, he sprang in without fear, for he knew his master was here! As Christians we have not been told about the glories that await us on the other side of death. But one thing we do know; our Master is there, and that is enough!

Most people would have written off Ko Than Byu as hopeless, but pioneer American missionary Adoniram Judson was different from most.

In early 19th-century jungles of Burma, Byu’s neighbors wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that the wild young man who left home at 15 had become a robber who claimed to have killed at least 30 people.

Byu, history records, eventually found himself in trouble and up for sale to pay a debt.

Byu’s temper was considered so volatile that the Burmese Christian who bought him as a servant was glad to give Byu to Judson for the price of the debt.

Something about Judson touched Byu in a way nothing else had. When Byu turned his life over to the Jesus that Judson taught, he was finally able to channel into good the boundless energy that had caused so much trouble.

Byu would return to the mountains with missionaries George and Sarah Boardman and spend the rest of his life evangelizing his fellow ethnic Karen people, many of whom are now Christians.

Byu was just one of many influenced by the man many consider the father of American missions, given Judson’s way of inspiring fellow Christians to look beyond their borders and carry the light of the Gospel to other nations.

Judson’s life had a more promising start than Byu’s, but it hardly felt that way to Judson’s devout parents when he told them he no longer believed in the God preached by his father, a rigid Congregationalist minister. Also disturbing to his parents, Judson was heading for New York to write for the theater. Neither his father’s reasoning nor his mother’s tears and prayers could deter him; but God could plant second thoughts.

A night that changed his life

In an inn en route to New York, Judson was placed in the room next to a dying man. During the night, hearing sounds from the next room, he found himself wondering whether the man was prepared to die, and whether he himself was prepared to face the prospect of bleak nothingness.

The next morning, Judson was told the man had died during the night. When Judson asked who he was, the answer shook him to the core. The man was Jacob Eames, a university friend who had influenced Judson to reject all revealed religion.

That night set Judson on a fresh quest for truth, one that led him to embrace Christ and join with other young men to offer themselves as America’s first global missionaries, starting a movement that continues to move forward today.

On Feb. 19, 1812, aware of the danger ahead, Judson and his new bride Ann “Nancy” Hasseltine Judson sailed for Calcutta, joined by fellow Congregationalist missionaries Samuel and Harriet Newell. They all knew they would meet pioneer English Baptist missionary William Carey.

On board, the Judsons searched the Scriptures, hoping to refute Carey’s promulgation of believer’s baptism. Instead, they concluded he was right and asked for baptism by immersion a few months after landing in India, knowing it meant cutting ties to Congregationalists, who practiced infant baptism by sprinkling.

Carey and others urged Baptists in America to support the Judsons and missionary work. The result was the Triennial Convention, which appointed the Judsons its first missionaries and later gave birth to the American Baptist and Southern Baptist Conventions.

Setting sail for Burma

In spite of warnings that they would not be well received, the Judsons sailed from India to Burma (now Myanmar), the country God had laid on Judson’s heart as he began to ponder missions. The Judsons would spend their lives there serving God.

Judson would wait six tough years, preaching in a roadside “zayat,” a meeting place similar to those used by Buddhists, before seeing his first convert. But by the time he died, Judson would know of 74 churches in Burma, partly because of his evangelism.

A gifted linguist, he would complete a translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Burmese that was so accurate it is still used today. Also gifted in languages, Nancy would translate Scripture and tracts into Burmese and Thai and teach women and children.

Judson would endure two years of imprisonment and torture, he and a colleague kept alive by Nancy’s heroic efforts. But he would soon lose Nancy and their young daughter to smallpox, sending him into years of depression.

Except for one trip home, Judson spent nearly 37 of his 61 years in Burma. He suffered the deaths of seven of his 13 children and two of his three wives, accomplished women as dedicated to missions as he. Judson died aboard ship on April 12, 1850, and was buried in the Indian Ocean.

But reports of his heroic efforts reached the United States. Far more than other pioneer American missionaries, he and Nancy inspired others -- and still inspire Christians today -- to carry the Gospel across cultures.

Watch out. They’re coming. And if they bite you, you’ll soon be joining them -- after you die an agonizing death, reanimate and become one of the “undead.”

I’m talking about zombies, of course. You can find them stumbling around looking for their next human snack in countless comics, books, computer games and movies. “The Walking Dead,” one of the most popular shows on TV, follows the grim adventures of survivors of the zombie apocalypse as they fight off hordes of mindless-but-hungry creatures in Georgia. No wisecracks, please; that’s my home state.

How did zombies become so big all of a sudden? It’s not all that sudden. George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” the low-budget movie that started the flesh-eating zombie craze, oozed onto theater screens in 1968. In fact, zombies entered American pop culture long before that. American soldiers who occupied Haiti in the 1920s brought back fearful tales of dead men working the fields, controlled by evil voodoo masters -- part superstition, part folklore emerging from the brutal Caribbean legacy of slavery. “White Zombie,” starring Bela Lugosi (the original movie Dracula), came out in 1932.

There are any number of theories floating around about why folks are fascinated with zombies, ranging from our timeless appetite for scary stories to heavy-duty dissertations analyzing our fear of global pandemics, terrorism, world-ending wars and even the dehumanizing effects of consumer culture.

But there’s a deeper and more universal human fear underlying the zombie obsession: our dread of death itself. And what comes after.

“The zombie’s horror is that he is ... a slave forever,” culture commentator Russell Moore wrote in a Baptist Press column last year. “After all, if even death cannot free you, you can never be free. That’s exactly the point, and here’s why it should matter to Christians. Zombies are horrifying not simply because they’re mean and aggressive. They’re horrifying because they represent what ought to repulse us: the rotting decay of death. But they still walk. And beyond that, they still crave. ... [T]hey are driven along by their appetites, though always under the sway of a slave master’s will. That’s our story” -- the story, in other words, of fallen human beings enslaved by sin and death.

No matter how hard our youth-obsessed culture tries to convince us otherwise, we know death is coming. I appreciated the honesty of actress Valerie Harper, whose recent announcement that she has incurable brain cancer brought a national wave of sympathy. “We’re all terminal,” she responded to well-wishers in one interview. “And we have a lot of fear [about] death.”

To allay that fear, secularists and pop spirituality hucksters assure us there are no such things as heaven, hell or a God who will judge our sins in view of eternity. We know deep down they are wrong, but many of us go along with the charade or fail to challenge it. It’s a comforting fiction for folks who reject or redefine biblical truth. It won’t be very comforting on Judgment Day.

Then there are the millions who ignore death (and any other serious subject) altogether. They also tend to ignore their own souls and consciences. They “live” for the moment -- like zombies. Perhaps you have noticed this tendency among those who have turned themselves over to technology, one of our contemporary false gods. Psychiatrist Keith Ablow described one of the worst manifestations of this form of idolatry in an article about the Ohio teens who stood by and watched, even taking and posting pictures and videos, as a female classmate rendered helpless by alcohol was sexually assaulted for hours:

“Having watched tens of thousands of YouTube videos with bizarre scenarios unfolding, having tweeted thousands of senseless missives of no real importance, having watched contrived ‘reality TV’ programs in which people are posers in false dramas about love or lust or revenge, having texted millions of times, rather than truly connecting, and having lost their real faces to the fake life stories of Facebook, they look upon the actual events of their lives with no more actual investment and actual concern and actual courage than they would look upon a fictional character in a movie. They are absent from their own lives and those of others. They are floating free in a virtual world where nothing really matters other than being cool observers of their own detached existence....”

What a pathetic way to waste a life, which is intended by God to prepare us for eternity.

Evil takes ever-changing forms, but it comes from two ancient sources: sin and death. Only one Person has defeated both. Jesus knew His beloved friend Lazarus was dead before He reached Bethany, as the story is told in the Gospel of John, chapter 11. Lazarus’ sisters had sent word, begging Jesus to hurry to the village to heal their ill brother. But He delayed His arrival. By the time He got there, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.

“Jesus said, ‘Remove the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’ When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:39-44, NASB).

Jesus had authority over death, and He glorified His Father by raising Lazarus. On Easter morning, God glorified Himself by raising Jesus. At that moment, the power of sin and death was crushed for all time. For all who believe and follow Him, there is no longer any reason to fear death -- or what follows. What follows is eternity in the presence of God.

Our zombified world desperately needs that message.

Watch out. They’re coming. And if they bite you, you’ll soon be joining them -- after you die an agonizing death, reanimate and become one of the “undead.”

I’m talking about zombies, of course. You can find them stumbling around looking for their next human snack in countless comics, books, computer games and movies. “The Walking Dead,” one of the most popular shows on TV, follows the grim adventures of survivors of the zombie apocalypse as they fight off hordes of mindless-but-hungry creatures in Georgia. No wisecracks, please; that’s my home state.

How did zombies become so big all of a sudden? It’s not all that sudden. George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” the low-budget movie that started the flesh-eating zombie craze, oozed onto theater screens in 1968. In fact, zombies entered American pop culture long before that. American soldiers who occupied Haiti in the 1920s brought back fearful tales of dead men working the fields, controlled by evil voodoo masters -- part superstition, part folklore emerging from the brutal Caribbean legacy of slavery. “White Zombie,” starring Bela Lugosi (the original movie Dracula), came out in 1932.

There are any number of theories floating around about why folks are fascinated with zombies, ranging from our timeless appetite for scary stories to heavy-duty dissertations analyzing our fear of global pandemics, terrorism, world-ending wars and even the dehumanizing effects of consumer culture.

But there’s a deeper and more universal human fear underlying the zombie obsession: our dread of death itself. And what comes after.

“The zombie’s horror is that he is ... a slave forever,” culture commentator Russell Moore wrote in a Baptist Press column last year. “After all, if even death cannot free you, you can never be free. That’s exactly the point, and here’s why it should matter to Christians. Zombies are horrifying not simply because they’re mean and aggressive. They’re horrifying because they represent what ought to repulse us: the rotting decay of death. But they still walk. And beyond that, they still crave. ... [T]hey are driven along by their appetites, though always under the sway of a slave master’s will. That’s our story” -- the story, in other words, of fallen human beings enslaved by sin and death.

No matter how hard our youth-obsessed culture tries to convince us otherwise, we know death is coming. I appreciated the honesty of actress Valerie Harper, whose recent announcement that she has incurable brain cancer brought a national wave of sympathy. “We’re all terminal,” she responded to well-wishers in one interview. “And we have a lot of fear [about] death.”

To allay that fear, secularists and pop spirituality hucksters assure us there are no such things as heaven, hell or a God who will judge our sins in view of eternity. We know deep down they are wrong, but many of us go along with the charade or fail to challenge it. It’s a comforting fiction for folks who reject or redefine biblical truth. It won’t be very comforting on Judgment Day.

Then there are the millions who ignore death (and any other serious subject) altogether. They also tend to ignore their own souls and consciences. They “live” for the moment -- like zombies. Perhaps you have noticed this tendency among those who have turned themselves over to technology, one of our contemporary false gods. Psychiatrist Keith Ablow described one of the worst manifestations of this form of idolatry in an article about the Ohio teens who stood by and watched, even taking and posting pictures and videos, as a female classmate rendered helpless by alcohol was sexually assaulted for hours:

“Having watched tens of thousands of YouTube videos with bizarre scenarios unfolding, having tweeted thousands of senseless missives of no real importance, having watched contrived ‘reality TV’ programs in which people are posers in false dramas about love or lust or revenge, having texted millions of times, rather than truly connecting, and having lost their real faces to the fake life stories of Facebook, they look upon the actual events of their lives with no more actual investment and actual concern and actual courage than they would look upon a fictional character in a movie. They are absent from their own lives and those of others. They are floating free in a virtual world where nothing really matters other than being cool observers of their own detached existence....”

What a pathetic way to waste a life, which is intended by God to prepare us for eternity.

Evil takes ever-changing forms, but it comes from two ancient sources: sin and death. Only one Person has defeated both. Jesus knew His beloved friend Lazarus was dead before He reached Bethany, as the story is told in the Gospel of John, chapter 11. Lazarus’ sisters had sent word, begging Jesus to hurry to the village to heal their ill brother. But He delayed His arrival. By the time He got there, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.

“Jesus said, ‘Remove the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’ So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.’ When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth.’ The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’” (John 11:39-44, NASB).

Jesus had authority over death, and He glorified His Father by raising Lazarus. On Easter morning, God glorified Himself by raising Jesus. At that moment, the power of sin and death was crushed for all time. For all who believe and follow Him, there is no longer any reason to fear death -- or what follows. What follows is eternity in the presence of God.

Our zombified world desperately needs that message.

A doctor was making rounds in a ward for the terminally ill, asked the patients if they had any final requests. He entered an older lady’s room and asked, “Is there anything I can arrange before you pass on?”

She replied, “Yes, I’d like to see my immediate family one more time.”

“Of course,” said the doctor, “we’ll arrange it.”

He asked a second patient for his wishes. “I’m a Catholic,” murmured the man. “I’d like to see a priest for confession and the last rites.”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor.

Then he approached the third patient, “Have you any last wish, sir?” he inquired.

“Yes,” gasped the old man. “My last wish is to see another doctor.”

________

Charles Lowery, SBC Life, June/July 1997 “Rise and Shine” p. 23

How an Iranian teenager found Christ and launched a mission to equip persecuted believers.

________

I was raised in a Muslim family in Tehran, Iran. My mother was a teacher and the principal of an elementary school. She knew a lot about Islam and did her best to follow its teachings. She helped me learn to read the Qur’an, taught me to pray at least three times a day, and encouraged me to fast during Ramadan.

As a Muslim teenager, I remember being full of fear — specifically, the fear that my parents would die. This was because my Islamic beliefs gave me no sense of security on whether they, or any other practicing Muslim, would be saved. I had big questions about the afterlife experience that my faith couldn’t answer. Thoughts of losing my parents would scare me to the point where I would go into their bedroom late at night just to ensure they were still breathing.

Medicine for my soul

One day, when I was 17, a relative of ours came to visit. She had recently become a Christian through her relationship with a missionary working in Iran. And so she decided to come to our house and attempt to share the gospel. “Jesus is Lord!” I recall her saying. “And he has come to save us from our sins!” She supported her claims with several Bible verses, including John 3:16 and John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

As a young Muslim, I had been taught that the Bible was corrupted, that the version we read today is a distortion of its original contents. But as I listened to this woman read from Scripture, I felt something of its power — and I felt sure that a book capable of grabbing my heart that intensely couldn’t be corrupted after all.

Typically, my mother would get offended if someone disagreed with her Islamic values. On that day, however, something surprising happened. Instead of fighting back, she listened peacefully and asked questions. There wasn’t a trace of defensiveness; it appeared that she simply wanted to know the truth. (Later on, our relative revealed that she had been praying for our family before coming to share the gospel, and I’m convinced those prayers worked to soften my mother’s spirit.)

Something else in our relative’s gospel presentation stood out: her claim that “Jesus can set you free from fear and save you from eternal death.” These words were medicine for my soul and food for my hungry heart. I had never heard such words of peace and reassurance from any spiritual leader in the Islamic world. In some strange but powerful way, I thought I could sense God’s presence and authority in what she said.

At the time, I had no understanding of anything like praying a salvation prayer. I didn’t know how to repent of my sin or receive Christ as Savior. But as I went upstairs to my room, I couldn’t stop reflecting on the idea that Jesus held the key to eternal life. Suddenly, I found myself on my knees. As I looked up, I said, “Jesus, I know you are Lord. Save me and set me free from my fears!”

Initially, I was reluctant to tell my mother I had become a Christian, because I feared her reaction. As it turns out, however, she was experiencing her own spiritual awakening at the very same moment. Soon enough, when she confessed having come to faith, I dared to tell her I had done the same. Remarkably, my father and younger brother converted to Christianity as well.

When we informed our family member of our decisions, she rejoiced with us and immediately connected us to a secret house church in Tehran. Sometimes it was scary to think that the Islamic government could arrest us and sentence us to long prison terms or even death. But the Holy Spirit gave us extraordinary courage and a growing desire to share the gospel with Muslims.

Over the next ten years, to deepen my walk with the Lord, I began traveling to Christian conferences outside of the country. I would study subjects like discipleship, church leadership, and church planting, and then I would bring those courses back to Iran and teach them to my cell groups. I was so passionate about God’s mission that I would pray on my knees, every day, for God to use me as a full-time minister.

After years of prayer, I had a dream in which God told me I would go to another country. He didn’t reveal the name of the country or even the region — only the year in which I would make my journey, the year 2013. As it happened, in that very year I became stuck in Turkey as a refugee. Two years earlier, the Iranian secret police had arrested one of the leaders in our church network, leaving me no choice but to flee the country.

I remember my last day in Iran, driving with tears in my eyes to say a final goodbye to all my family members, knowing I would never be able to return. I can still feel the pain of that separation. But God was faithful in fulfilling his promises, working through the United Nations to secure my passage to the United States, where I live today. He gave me a great church and a great Christian family who cared for me. He gave me wonderful, godly mentors who have poured blessings and wisdom into my life, coached me, and prayed with me in hard times.

For nearly 21 years, I have been involved in ministry for the persecuted church. I have planted several house churches and taught discipleship and leadership courses within them. After moving to the United States, I discerned a call to equip the Persian church through social media platforms. My goal is to use the power of online education and social media to train new leaders. I store all my teaching and videos on my social media platforms. And I mentor all my trainees online, meeting with them in person a few times a year in a safe country in Central Asia.

Meanwhile, my wife and I host a weekly Christian fellowship on Instagram for Persian-speaking people in secret house churches in places like Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. People tune in from all over the world, and we worship God together and pray for each other. We have the chance to share the gospel with Muslims who live in regions we could never hope to visit.

Set free from fear

One year after I gave my heart to Jesus, my father died of cancer. It was a great sadness for our family. But he had become a great believer, and in his last days, he was praising Jesus on his bed, even during the toughest moments of chemotherapy. I remember sitting by his bed and reading the Bible for him. Afterward, I would pray for God’s healing touch. And my father would raise his hands to show that he was praying and worshiping alongside me.

When he went to be with the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave my family and me an incredible sense of peace. I realized that God had healed me and set me free from the fear of death, both my parents’ and my own. And I rejoiced in the certainty that because of Christ, someday soon we would all be found in the presence of the living God forever.

________

Nathan Rostampour is a church planting pastor and a leadership coach and serves with The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.