Scott continues the discussion on the Truth in True Crime series, speaking about the Christian perspective on victory over death. He begins by explaining how Jesus rendered the devil powerless, eliminating the fear of death. He also discusses Paul’s teachings that believers should view death as gain, and the importance of meditating on Psalms to deepen one’s understanding of God's promises. Scott also discusses his personal journey with cancer, sharing how it has reshaped his faith and perspective on life and mortality.

Scott also discusses the practical applications of faith, encouraging listeners to see death as a reunion with God, emphasizing the quality of each day. He discusses his daily spiritual practices, including reading Psalms before bed and using spiritual soliloquy to realign focus. Scott closes with reflections on living a purpose-driven life, embracing each day fully, and planning to die well with peace and faith in God’s promises

Key Topics Discussed:

• Jesus’ victory over death and removing fear
• Paul’s teachings on death as a gain
• Meditating on Psalms for deeper faith
• Personal reflections and experiences with mortality
• Insights from spiritual leaders like Dr. Tim Keller and Paul Brand
• Practical applications of faith in daily life
• Importance of living purpose-driven and fruitful lives
• Assurance of eternal joy and home with God
• Encouragement to view death positively and plan to die well

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Hi. If you're looking for greater hope, assurance, and confidence through the shifting sands of life, then join me on today's episode as we dig deep into the bible to discover rock solid truth for life and living from the God of the bible. I'm your host, Scott Keffer. Hi, and welcome to today's episode. As always, for a deeper experience, you can go to the show notes and download the blank insight sheet. Fill in the blanks along with the group. Depending on how you're listening to this, there'll be a link to the episode website at beholdingbibletruth.com, and a sheet with the answers is included as well. Enjoy today's episode.

So the entrance of cancer into our life again in, Mary Anne's life leads you, of course, through all sorts of thoughts. You go through all sorts of outcomes of this trusting for a good outcome, but trusting that God has an outcome, which we always know is good. And, of course, it brought up lots of memories for us. My mom had cancer and battled it for 5 years and eventually passed. And within 3 days of each other, my mom passed and then our our the the band couple really who discipled us, she passed of ovarian cancer. My mom passed from breast cancer that metastasized, but that was 35 years ago. And in between there, death has kinda touched us in the distant, but not in the direct. And I think every time we encounter, we always say that's a weird death is weird, isn't it? It just is strange.

It's hard to embrace. And one of the, opportunities we have is when we go to New York City, we would sit under the teaching of doctor Tim Keller who, who had pancreatic cancer as well, and he wrote an article on death, which is what we're talking about today. I'm gonna read from that article if I could. He said, I spent a, a good part of my life talking with people about the role of faith in the face of death since I became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 19 set 75. I sat at countless bedsides, occasionally even watched someone take their final breath. And he said, I recently wrote a small book on death relating what it means to people. A little more than a month after that was published, he encountered cancer in his life. This was back in 2020 on the way home from a a conference in Asia.

And he said he said, I I looked around online to see the he said the the harrowing survival statistics for pancreatic cancer. And he said that I caught a glimpse of on death, his book that he wrote on death on a table nearby, and he said I didn't dare open it to read what I had written. And he said my wife, Kathy, and I spent much time in tears and disbelief. We were both turning 70, but we felt strong. We felt like we had a lot of time left. But he said we, we expected some illness to come into our life at some point in time, but not right then. He said, so we had, you know, the cry in our heart, Lord, why why now? Right? And he said a significant number of believers in God find their face shaken or destroyed when they learned that they will die at a time and in a way that seems unfair to them. Before my diagnosis, I'd seen people of many faiths.

He said, I remember one woman told me I'm I'm not a believer anymore. How could a personal god do this to me? And he said, cancer killed her god. So he said, what would happen to me? I felt like a surgeon who was suddenly on the operating table. Would I be able to take my own advice? So one of the first things I learned was that faith doesn't automatically provide solace in the midst of this. Right? He said, if I'm not self thinking, what? No. I I can't die. That happens to others, but not me. Not me.

When I said these outrageous words out loud, he said, I realized that this delusion had been the actual operating principle of my heart. So he said, so when the certainty of your mortality and death finally breaks through, is there a way to face it without debilitating fear? Is there a way to spend the time you have left growing into greater grace, love, and wisdom? He had an early warning signal. He had a path through which he was gonna have to deal with it. Right? Some have that, others don't. He said, I believe there is. It's both intellectual as well as emotional engagement. And he said it's head work and hard work. Head work and hard work.

So he said, Paul Brand, an orthopedic surgeon, spent the first part of his medical career in India and the last part in the US. And he said this is what Brand said, quote, in the United States, I encountered as a a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs. Yeah. Right? He wrote in his recent memoir. Patients lived at a greater comfort level than anywhere and in any time previously, but they seem far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it. Why is it that people in prosperous modern societies seem to struggle so much with the existence of evil, suffering, and death? In in his book, Secular Age, Charles Taylor said that people struggle with the ways and justice of God always, but until quite recently, no one had concluded that suffering made the existence of God impossible. He said for millennia, people have a strong belief in their own inadequacy and their sinfulness and did not hold the modern assumption that we all deserve to live a comfortable life. Moreover, Taylor has argued we've become so confident in our powers of logic that we cannot imagine any good reason that suffering exists, so we assume there can't be a good reason.

But if there is a god great enough to merit our anger over suffering, you witness the suffering you witness and endure, then there is a god great enough to have reasons for allowing it that you can't detect. It is not logical to believe in an infinite god and still be convinced that you can tally the sums of all the good and evil that he does or grow angry that he doesn't always see things your way. Taylor points out that people say suffering makes faith in God impossible, but it is in fact their overconfidence in themselves and their abilities that set them up for anger, for fear, and for confusion. So he said when I got my cancer diagnosis, I I had to look not only at my professed beliefs, which aligned with historical Protestant orthodoxy, but also my actual understanding of who god is. Had it been shaped by culture? Had I been slipping unconsciously into the supposition that god lived for me rather than I living for him, and that life should go well for me that I knew better than God how things should go. The answer he said was yes to some degree. And I think the answer for all of us would be yes to some degree. He said, I found that to embrace God's greatness to say thy will be done was painful at first and then perhaps counterintuitively, profoundly liberating.

To assume that God is as small and finite as we are may feel freeing, but it offers no remedy for anger. Another rare head work for me was Jesus' resurrection. I ironically, I've been working on a book about Easter. Before cancer, the resurrection had been mostly theoretical theoretical issue for me, but not now. And he said the hard work came as I struggled to bridge the gap between an abstract belief and one that touches the imagination and the heart. Right? That the eyes of my heart needed to be enlightened. And he said, his journey involved 3 disciplines. I would like to know what those are.

Only a couple of you. When my mom passed, I had been a Christian Christian maybe 6 or 7 years and good friend of ours, Jim Lecky. I don't know if anybody know who Jim Lecky is. He was kinda the Billy Graham of Pittsburgh, local, just amazing guy. Anyway, he preached at my mom's funeral, and he said it is better to go to a house of mourning than it is to a house of feasting. And he preached on that that verse, and I never thought about that before, but to consider our own mortality. So let's look at some truths about death. On your sheet, some truths about death.

We have the ability to imply truth. See if Lewis said, death is Satan's great weapon and also god god's great weapon. It's holy and unholy, our supreme disgrace, and it is our only hope to think Christ came to conquer and the means by which he conquered. So I remind ourselves that Jesus took on death. He took on death in order to defeat death. Jesus took on death in order to defeat death. He partook of the same. He said that through death, he might render powerless.

Render powerless. Who? Him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and he might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their life. So death not only has its power, right, which has been neutralized by, by the lord Jesus and and the devil, but the fear that goes along with it. Narayan Jesus said, I I'm the resurrection, and the life you who believes in me will live even if he dies. And then he asked her at the end, he said he believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Then he asked the question, do you believe this, and do you faith it? Is it real? Is it reality? Right? That we have we embraced this fact that, oh, death, oh, death, where where is your victory? Where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us victory. We have victory over death.

Victory over death. And so it makes me examine. I remember when Shirley who was really my mom in Christ. When I came to Christ, I began to go to the Bible Distribution Center downtown, and Shirley began to mentor me along with Lee. So I really had 2 mentors in the faith. And when Shirley's, husband passed, we went to a funeral at Bethany Baptist. And I will you know, Beth and I were the we were the marshmallows in the in the hot cocoa. I we were the only few white folks.

And and we went in there very Presbyterian like. We sat down very solemn, and then all of a sudden, this celebration broke out. And it was the weirdest thing to us that they were celebrating somebody who had passed, but they were actively living out the fact that to die is gain. To die is gain. Death in Christ is gain. What a weird, weird thought when you come to Christ that is so different because death feels like, right, the enemy. And in in sense, it is. But and Paul says for me for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

So I thought about, well, how can it be gained? One is death will not separate you and me from us. The love of God. Death for death will not separate. And he says, for I am convinced, fully convinced that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth or any other creative thing will separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Death will not separate you from God's love. That's the scariest thing. Right? And then he says he will wipe away every tear from your eyes. There'll be no longer be any death.

No more death. We will have no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. Can't wait till my back and my knee stops hurting. Right? When all this stuff goes away, when we when the earth suit when we turn it in, you know, no more. And I love this. He says, in your presence, there is fullness of joy. Fullness. Not some joy, not it'll be better, but he says there is fullness of joy and pleasures forever.

To which you think, what does that mean, pleasure's forever? And one of the things that Lewis CS Lewis said is, what we do is we take things here and we we put some up there. Was that mean I'll be able to play golf when I get there? Does that mean I'll be able to shoot well? Does it is it golf forever? Is it is it the vacation forever? He said it's not. It's just it's a whole another, but it's pleasure forever. It's fullness of joy. I would like to know what that is. You can't know. It's mother. Right? This is this is black and white.

That will be 3 d and color. So fullness of joy. Fullness of joy. And I love this. He says, but now we are children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we will be. How many have thoughts? What does it look like? How old will you be? What will right? He says you it doesn't appear, but we don't know. But we know that when he appears, we will be like him. We will be like him.

What? He says he will transform the body of this humble state into conformity with the body of his glory. What does that mean? We will be free from sin forevermore, forevermore, forevermore. I mean, think about that. Sin will be gone. The presence of sin will be gone. Not like Adam and Eve in the garden who could sin again and fall forevermore. We will be free from sin. And I love this.

When you travel outside of the country and you get home, how many feel like feel so good to be back on home soil. Then then we may travel around the world. You think so? Or you've been out for a while or gone for a while, and you come home and, you know, home again, home again, jiggy jiggy. You know? You say, I'm home. Really, I'm home in this place where I'm completely comfortable, where there's safety and sanctuary and rest. Well, we will be eternally home. We will be eternally home, and we will be with the father, the son, the holy spirit, the angels, and all the other believers. That's why Paul says, be of good courage.

Be of good courage. Why? He says, prefer I I prefer to be absent from the body, and at home, this is the reunion that you always wanted. This is when we'll be in fullness. Right? And it says, right, you you I I love this in Hebrews. You come to the mount, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. What will there be? Myriads of angels. So the general assembly in church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to god the judge, and to all, and to the spirit of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. It is it is the the the reunion of bliss that we will come together with all of those.

So he said, do not let your heart be troubled. I love that. So for you, what makes gay what makes death gain for you? What makes death gain for you? No more sin. Can't wait for that, Richard man that I am. Who will set me free from this body of death? Thanks be to god through Christ our lord. Who else? What else? Wholeness, joy, not some, wholeness, Jesus face to face. You think what makes that gain to me? So we have to reorient our profit definition, don't we? Because Paul says, wherever was gained for me right, we have to re reorient our profit and make sure we have an internal profit definition. So if you flip over, there were 3 things that Keller said to help with it.

So the first thing he said, and this is interesting because we took the habit of, years years ago right before as we're getting ready to, you know, drop our head on the pillows, I'll read a Psalm, and then we'll pray for the end. And so I don't know how many times we've read through Psalms, and it just just gives you a sense of who God is and struggle of man with their sin and and frustration and afflictions and you know, life. You see life, reality, and you see God in there. So he said immerse himself in the Psalms. One of the things he did is he immerse himself in the Psalms. He said, first of all, to ensure I wasn't creating a god of my old imagination. Voltaire said, god made us in his image. Man has been returning the favor ever since.

We love a god in our own image. The second he said was spiritual soliloquy, which is a a discipline. So in the Psalms, the psalmist will cry out, soul, why are you in despair? You read that? Where he says soul, why like, he's talking to his own soul. Why are you in despair? Why are you so downcast? Trust in the Lord. Hope in the Lord. So he said, he pressed God's promises into his heart until they become real. You and it's weird, but you have to have a conversation with your soul. And what I found is feelings this for me.

Feelings are false prophets. Feelings are false prophets. And oftentimes, I surrender power in my life to my feelings. Surrender power in my life to my feelings. And as the miles round up on your engine, your machine, right, the body is harder because it hurts more, and so it's easier to surrender to those feelings. The third thing is he said I focus on Jesus' resurrection. I focus on Jesus' resurrection. Because he said I want my mind and my heart to come together.

I want my mind be be transformed by the renewing of your mind, but out of the heart flow, right, out of the heart. So he said, pray daily for my heart to rest in the assurance of eternal eternal life with the idea that I'm gonna rise. He rose. I'll rise. We focused on Jesus' resurrection beyond just the theoretical, right, the buying part of it. And if you know him, he's he's perfect for New York City. He's the modern he really is a modern day CS Lewis. He speaks to the intellectual.

He's perfect for New York City, filled with intellectuals. Right? Because of the financial and the fear, he had both of them. Right? So mind and heart together. Mind and heart. And he has some great quotes, I thought. He said, since my diagnosis, Kathy and I have come to see that the more we tried to make heaven out of this world, the more we grounded our comfort and security in it, the less we were able to enjoy it. Well, that's really insightful and convicting because I would like to have heaven on earth. We'll often say as things get more out of seemingly out of control, can't we go somewhere? You wanna you wanna move somewhere? You wanna go somewhere where everything is right? It's just not here.

So he said, to our surprise and encouragement, Kathy and I have discovered that the less we attempt to make this world into a heaven, the more we're able to enjoy it. And so the first principle is that life is not heaven. This life is not heaven and will never be. Dang. I'd love for that to be. And the second thing he said is god gives his supernatural peace. God gives his supernatural peace. That's what we're afraid of.

Well, I don't know. That's why Jesus said, you get grace for today. So when you're worried about tomorrow, you can't imagine the grace for tomorrow because I don't give it tomorrow. I give it today. It's only give the grace that you need when you need it. And he said, we experienced in those moments when I laid down in complete peace, I realized I was experiencing a kind of joy and rest in God that I had never had before. In which if you're a thinking person, you say, oh, great. I have to die on this doorstep in order to experience.

But there's a joy there. There's a peace there that will overcome your fear. And lastly, you said if the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened, then ultimately, God is going to put everything right I like that. Suffering is gonna go away. Evil is gonna go away. Death is gonna go away. The presidential election's gonna go away. Aging is gonna go away.

Right? The the the brokenness of the world's gonna go away. And he said, pancreatic cancer is going to go away. And whatever it is you have is gonna go away too. He heals all our diseases. It's a great reminder, isn't it? So he gives us insights and when you when it's imminent that you're going to die. So he knew that the time the the clock is ticking. Well, in fact, his clock is ticking for us all, isn't it? It just was seemingly ticking a little louder for him because the day seemed in sight. So I thought plan to die well.

Plan to die well. Well, that seems weird. Plan to die well. And I love this. John Piper said, as a minister of the word of God, I've always thought that part of my calling is to help people die well. And I hoped every visit to the bedside of the dying would be faith strengthening, hope giving, bible saturated, gospel centered, and Christ exalted. And he told the story, and I think I shared this before. He said, I went to to see one of the, the women in my congregation who was dying.

And he said, I went in there and the TV was blaring. And he said, what a weird juxtaposition. Somebody's dying, but a life is ending and you have this TV blaring. And he said, it just seems so strange to me. You know? And I remember when we went in there and I just every night I'm going, like, shut that thing off. Like, pull the cord out. But he said, plan to die well. So so he said that that the less we attempt to make this world into heaven so I thought we have to embrace death as gain.

We have to we have to define it as gain. Even our language of it.

Oh my.

Oh, you know, it's whereas as as a believer, we have to embrace the fact and then I realized like him how my quad has been really just infiltrated by modern society. So we have to embrace death that's game. We have to say, also, I'm convinced, which means I've I've had this inner argument with myself where I wait it out and I've come to the conclusion. He also says, I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels or principalities. Right? He said I'm convinced. Are you fully convinced that death is gain? Have a conversation with yourself where you convince yourself that for a Christian, death is gain. The other thing that came up was when I thought about Philippians. He said, according to my earnest expectation and hope, he said that I will not be put to shame in anything.

Talked about shame last time. But that with all boldness, Christ will even now as always be exalted in my body while I live whether by life or by death. So I thought decide to boldly honor to boldly honor Christ in your life and in your death. Boldly honor. And it might be practically, you know, sketch out your service. Right? Your obituary. Think about, right, how can you honor him whether in life or by death. So I like this process.

For me, to live is Christ and to die of gain. But he says, if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me fruitful labor for me. But he said, and I do not know which to choose. So he's right? He's perplexed. He says, to die is gain, to stay is fruitful labor. So he said, I'm hard pressed from both directions. I wouldn't say I'm hard pressed from both directions. He say I'm hard pressed from both directions, either one.

He said, die, fruitful labor. Die fruitful labor. I'm hard pressed. Hard pressed. Having to desire to hard price for that is so much better. And he goes on to say, but it's better for you that I stay. It's better for you. Why? Fruitful labor.

So live a life of fruitful labor. Fruitful labor. And depending on where you are in life and what that means, it means having a clear sense of what does God call me to, what is the fruit fruit that remains. You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. Right? Fruit that remains. Fruitful labor. And that might be, you know, physically, it might be praise. Send me a text.

Be on the phone. Whatever. Right? I I don't have the capacity to labor, right, physically anymore. It doesn't matter. He's saying you can have fruitful labor. That's why I put till the end. And it gives really, I think, a strong sense of you're never unuseful in the kingdom of God. You're never unuseful.

No matter what you feel like you can do or not do physically, because it's less and less, isn't it? Every mile, it gets harder and harder. Right? It's harder for the engine to start. It's harder. You know, there's a lot more creaks and, you know, all of that stuff. But he's saying you can have fruitful labor. You never become unfruitful, and I love that. He I love this. They will still, what, yield fruit in old age.

They will still yield fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and very green to declare that the lord is upright. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. So it begs the question, so what is fruitful labor for you in this season of your life? What does that mean for you? Put it in there. What is fruitful labor in this season of life? Fruitful labor. Not a great promise. They will still yield fruit in old age. Still yield fruit in old age.

Cling to that. Right? They will still yield fruit. I love that idea. So Lord says, teach us to number our days that we may present to thee a heart of wisdom. And to remind you, in my book, they're all written. What are written? The days. The days. The days that were ordained for you, a custom number of days have been ordained for you.

They're already written in the book. You're not changing the quantity of days. We have we participate in the quality of our days. We don't participate in the quantity of our days. So I put many or few sees not the day, sees each day, sees each day, sees each day. I was creating a tool for our, our our coaching folks. And in there, one of the boxes which we did I shared with them what we did in finish strong when we did the the series on finish strong. And in the no regrets box because I thought about what are the things that if if if the days that were ordained for me are done tomorrow, would I have regrets? One of them was this book with Jack, which we did do, and the the podcast.

I mean, that's what finally I mean, we've been talking about it for how long?

I can't remember how long.

I can't remember. A long time. I mean, it was years. Right? And there may be things that are sitting on your back burner that need to be moved to the front burner because I don't know how many burners you right? I don't know how many days we get. Right? So that was for me. You know what? If if the Lord called me home and we didn't have this done, I'd have to see Jack in heaven one day and say, dad, what the heck? But we're grateful that that that got done and teaching and all that. So see it each day. Scripture said, this is the day that the lord has made.

He's made this day this day. Let us rejoice and be glad in it because you don't know that you get another one. You get this day. So siege each day. So plan to die well. Plan to die well. Embrace death is gain. Boldly honor him in life and death.

Be fruitful Mhmm. And seize each day. Alright. Put an application down. Insight application on why the enemy death is not an enemy. It's now gained. Might as well follow him. That's right.

Might as well follow him. Yep. Right? What what Jesus say, so where else you gonna go? Yeah. Right? Where are you gonna go? Right? Yeah. Follow him. That's a good one. I mean, he has a plan till the very last day. Whatever the last day is, he has a plan till that day and all days after, the forevermore after that.

It's mind boggling. It should be. Yeah. And this season or stage is what I call, right, this fruitfulness. Right? And then you bring all your past experiences and wisdom to it. Right? And he fully equips you for whatever that next season is, which is really cool. Yeah. Whatever that group.

So embrace the fruitfulness for that season. Well, close us in prayer if you would.

I think, father, we thank you again for this day and for this week and for this time you've given us, to be together, to encourage one another, to to seek and to find and to celebrate your word. Thank you for the diligence of our leaders. We pray for Scott. We pray for his family. And we pray for our own, outlook to live each day. And maybe as if it were our last, but to celebrate what lies ahead of us because of the promise of your son and because of, what he's done for us in his death and his resurrection. We thank you for this week. We pray that we'll continue to encourage one another, cheer each other on, and and be faithful ambassadors of our faith.

Pray this all in Jesus' precious name. Amen.

May the lord God, may he bless you. May he keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you. May he lift up his countenance and grant you shalom deep in your spirit. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now until the day when he calls you home, this day or that day. Amen. Thanks for listening. I hope you have greater hope, assurance, and confidence in your life and a deeper trust in the god of the bible and his son, Jesus Christ.

Until next time, may the lord bless you and keep you. May the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you his peace, his shalom in your soul and in your life. Until next time, may God bless you and keep you.