Dealing with Death

If you'd open your Bibles, please to Genesis chapter 23, Genesis chapter 23. After the climactic test in Abraham's life that we saw in Genesis 22 with the command to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, a burnt offering to the Lord, after that is successfully met and the test is passed by Abraham. The story of Abraham's life begins to wind down toward its conclusion. In chapter 23 we have the death of his wife Sarah. In chapter 24 we have the arranging of Isaac's marriage on the part of Abraham before he dies and in chapter 25 records the death of Abraham himself. And so as we come to the end of Abraham's life there is more emphasis on the death of Sarah and Abraham than there would be for most couples or even individuals in the Bible. And so this evening we're going to talk about dealing with death. That is never something that we are never quite ready for. As much as we understand and know the Scriptures and we know what happens to our loved ones at death we know that they will be in the presence of the Lord if they know Christ as their Savior. As much as we know that and have the assurance of that we're never quite ready for the flood of emotions that comes when we have a loved one to die. Most of you in this room have had a close relative husband or a wife or a parent or a child who has gone on into the presence of the Lord and you know that that is a time when the emotions seem to flow and sometimes we can't stop those and we're going to talk about that tonight. It's not good to try to stop those. We'll find that in Abraham's life. The Spirit of God allows us to walk with us through this sacred ground. There is a sense in which we are going with Abraham to a place where few people are allowed to go. I have many many times walked with families through this valley and it is somewhat of a sacred time. I am always aware that for instance at a funeral home when the family first goes in the room to view the body of their loved one and maybe they have watched them die over a period of time and they've seen them in the hospital and illness has done its work of emaciating the body and now they see them in the funeral home and it's always a time when I want to be with them but I want to back away a little bit and give them some space because that's a very sacred part of their lives and their emotional experience and spiritual experience to be a part of. There's a sense in which God allows us to walk through this whole ordeal with Abraham and see how he handles the loss of his wife Sarah. This is a great loss for Abraham. This is the woman who has gone on this tremendous adventure of faith with him. She took that trip to Canaan with him. She has seen the highs and the lows, the gains and the losses, the promises and the heartaches, the successes, the failures. She has walked every step of this with her husband and now she is gone. It's unusual actually to be given this much attention to a death in the Scriptures. In fact, a whole chapter is given to Sarah's death and almost a whole chapter given to Abraham's death. Sarah is the only woman in the Bible whose age is mentioned at death and that's an unusual feature. I think there is something that the spirit of God really wanted to call our attention to here. He wants us to view with Abraham quietly observe and learn how he responds to the death of his wife and as we observe him respond, we will find that there are three elements that come to the forefront in dealing with death that we see in Abraham's experience. The first one is we find Abraham expressing his grief. Verses 1 and 2. Sarah lived to be 127 years old. She died at Kiryath Arba that is Hebron in the land of Canaan and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. It's a little difficult to tell just from our English versions but verse 2 is a good description of grieving in their culture. What it was like to grieve in the culture that Abraham lived in. Grieving in their culture is expressed with two words. First of all the word mourn. Abraham went to mourn for Sarah. The Bible says the Hebrew word for mourn literally means to beat the chest. It was a very common expression of grief in the ancient Near East to beat one's chest in an expression of deep sorrow. If you watch the news today you will find that that is still the case in the Middle East. You will find when people mourn the loss of a loved one the way they express that seems a little out of character to us because we don't express our grief in that way but that's very typical even today in the Middle East. For someone to beat their chest it's a sign of deep grief and mourning and the word weep. The Bible also says he went to weep for her. It's a very strong word. The Hebrew word means to lament with great sorrow, grievous sorrow. Again the word is used throughout the Bible of very outward and public unrestrained expressions of grief, of weeping outwardly. Abraham felt this loss very deeply and he grieved in the way that was common to his culture. Unrestrained, unapologetic, very demonstrative grief. You still see it on the newsreels today. The news stories out of the Middle East. Abraham wept. Abraham uncontrollably unrestrained, wept for the loss of his wife. He wept, he grieved in the way that was very common for the culture of that day. So let me take a moment to apply what we're seeing here to our culture today and what it means to grieve in our culture. We are somewhat more restrained than they were in Old Testament times. We are not as open and demonstrative with our grief as they would have been in Bible times. We don't typically see people grieving bodily like they do, beating their chest, weeping openly, unrestrained, uncontrollably almost. But we still grieve and there are ways that we express that even though it may be more restrained. There are many people that feel if you're a Christian, your grief should even be more restrained than normal. I have heard it said, in fact, I remember being in the presence of a family where a pastor said to them, you should not grieve. The Bible says don't grieve as others that have no hope. And he actually chastised someone for crying. And I bit my tongue at that occasion because I wanted to say something. I think that is a terrible misunderstanding of a verse of Scripture. The verse is 1 Thessalonians 413. It's on the screen for you and you're all aware of this verse. You hear it many times at grave side services. Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. I want you to notice where the comma is in that verse. The verse does not say that we do not want you to grieve comma like the rest of men. No, the comma is later. There is a thought that goes together here and that thought is that we are not to grieve like the rest of men. We are not to grieve in the same way or the same depth or with the lack of hope that people who do not know Christ grieve. It does not say that we should not grieve. It says that our grief has a tinge of hope to it that is unlike the grief of an unsaved person. And so in that sense, we do not grieve in the same way that an unsaved person would grieve. Although grief is very legitimate and very real even for a believer. I've also heard it said that we should not speak as Christians in terms of losing our loved ones because they are not lost. We know where they are. I think that is a callous statement. When you have someone who is so close to you who has been a part of your life, who has been intertongued with your heart and their lives are intertwined with your heart. An important part of your life is now absent from your life. There is a real sense of loss there. And that's not that they are lost in the sense that we don't know where they are. We know they're in heaven, but there is still a real sense of loss in your life. The Scriptures never condemn grief. They only tell us that we should not grieve with a hopeless kind of sorrow because we do know that we have hope for the future. In fact, I believe tears are valuable. Tears have been built into us by God, given to us as a relief mechanism. I love the way that the old British preacher F.B. Meyer writes about this in a fine little book that he's written on some of the Old Testament Bible characters. In his section on Abraham, he says this. He says there are some who chide tears as unmanly, unsubmissive, un-Christian. They would comfort us with a chill and pious stoicism, bidding us meet the most agitating passages of our history with rigid and tearless countenance. With such, he says, the spirit of the gospel and of the Bible has little sympathy. We have no sympathy with a morbid sentimentality, but we may well question whether the man who cannot weep can really love. For sorrow is love widowed and bereaved. And where that is present, its most natural expression is in tears. Religion does not come to make us unnatural and inhuman, but to purify and inobal all those natural emotions with which our manifold nature is endowed. Jesus wept, Peter wept, the Ephesian converts wept on the neck of the apostle whose face they thought they were to never see again. Christ stands by each mourner saying, weep my child, weep, for I have wept. He goes on to say, tears relieve the burning brain as a shower the electric clouds, tears discharge the insupportable agony of the heart as an overflow lessens the pressure of the flood against the dam. Tears are the material out of which heaven weaves its brightest rainbows. And as only an old English expositor could say, he tells very well the important and very natural and human place of grief and expressing our grief. So the scriptures never condemn grief. They do tell us that we should not grieve hopelessly, but we do grieve. We do suffer loss. A believer may go through all of the stages of grief that are normal for any person to go through. There are at least six stages that people go through in grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then acceptance, and finally hope. And a believer will experience some of those, maybe all of them depending on how close the relationship was. The Bible says we should not grieve as those that have no hope, but we do grieve. We grieve with a sense of God's strength and presence with us, but we still grieve nonetheless. Someone has said the only way to see the rainbow is through the rain. And God doesn't able us to see the blessing and the hope that lies beyond the tears and the grief that we sense when a loved one dies. So Abraham in a way that was very typical of his culture expresses his grief with weeping, with the beating of his chest to express the awful loss that he feels because his dear Sarah is gone from him. So we find him expressing his grief. But secondly, as we see him in this very tender scene, we find him caring for details, caring for details. In verses three through sixteen, we find these details. And what we will see is just as is true in our day, Abraham is quickly faced with a mass of details to care for. In that culture, they normally buried someone within 24 hours. And so he must quickly care for some details, but the way he does it shows us something about his character. And that's what I really want us to focus on. As he covers all of these details that would be common to them in their way of burying people, there are lots of things that are said about his character. Let's note them. First of all, in verses three through six, we see a good reputation. Verse three, the Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the hitites. He said, I am an alien and a stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead. The hitites replied to Abraham, Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead. You see, Abraham does not own property in Canaan. God has told him to wander throughout the land as a stranger, as an alien, a pilgrim, a foreigner, if you will. And he has to be looking for a better city as the book of Hebrews says it. The city whose foundation and maker is God himself. It's a heavenly city. So he's not to drive down stakes into this land as his own land. He's just traveling through because he is a foreigner because he does not own land or property. He must negotiate for a place to bury his wife. But the response, the answer of the leaders of the hitites is none of us would keep back our own family tombs, our own sepulchres from you. You can have your choice. They are at your disposal and that's because of his great testimony before these people. Their respect for him is seen in this discussion between them. I wonder when it comes to times of great passage in our lives. Do we find the respect of others in the community communicated to us? Do we have the kind of respect that would draw them toward our needs? I will never forget the December service of 1990 when we said kind of a farewell to preacher Jimmy. We gave him a formal farewell as a church. You may recall that toward the end of his ministry here. One of the things that impressed me so much, just having been here about six months and working with him was in that service the number of people from the community that were here. The number of leaders in our community, people who are well respected in our community, were here to celebrate with him to, to, in a sense, add their greetings to what the church was doing. And that spoke volumes to me about his esteem and respect in the community. It was earned over 37 years of ministering to people in this community. That's the kind of respect Abraham had. It's the kind of respect we should all hope to have. Should we go through these kinds of passages of life from one phase of life to the next or when we lay our loved ones to rest? That those who are around us would say, I have such respect for you. I will be there to offer my help. Abraham had a good reputation and as he begins to care for these details, we see it coming out. But not only was there a good reputation, there was courtesy on the part of this man. Look at verse 7. Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the hitites. Skip down to verse 12. Again, Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And the whole passage as we will look through it, we will find that Abraham bends to their customs. He will not push his own way. He is very courteous in how he deals with the people in this area. Even when he is in need of something, he's very courteous how he approaches them, how he addresses them, how he bends to their customs rather than enforcing his own from his own homeland. And I think there's something to be learned from Abraham here. He is a courteous gentleman. You know, there are some people who are impressed with brashness, with rudeness and speech, with a kind of pugnacious attitude as the way the King James would say it. A kind of fighting spirit that always has a sharp answer and a quick put down. The Bible is no friend to that kind of a spirit. The Bible talks about gentleness being a sign of strength. As we'll see in a moment meekness being a source of strength, the sign of strength. The Bible has no place in the part of a Christian's life for someone who strikes out at others either physically or verbally. Certainly there is a place for a strong stand against sin and against hypocrisy and against false teaching. Jesus was very vocal in his response to those kinds of error, but that's not the standard for our whole demeanor. I was in a bookstore with someone one time and this person saw a book that had an objectionable title and they started turning over every book so that the title would not show. And that would seem to be an admirable thing for a Christian to do. And I said to them, I said, you know, we really shouldn't do that. This is not our property. We're not in control over what happens in this bookstore. We don't have to buy those books. We don't have to read those books. We don't even have to look at the cover of that kind of book. But we don't need to mess with their merchandise and their response to me was, well Jesus turned over the money changers tables or money changers tables in the temple. And I thought about that for a moment and then the thought occurred to me. You know, the reason Jesus did that was because that was his father's house. Barnes and Noble is not his father's house. A little different situation there. And something that we might do in his father's house, Jesus probably would not have done in a Barnes and Noble. But in his father's house, where it is being misused for illegitimate merchandising, Jesus expressed very visibly his anger. But that is not to be the overall demeanor of a believer in dealing with other people. And Abraham is a good example of the kind of courteous gentleman and gentle woman. Is that what you call it? Is that how it goes? I'm not sure what you women are when you're courteous. But anyway, kind of courtesy that we should show to other people. Abraham is a good example of that. He bows low in respect. He references them with respect. He treats them even in the dealings that will go on from here with great respect and courtesy. He is a kind and courteous gentleman. So we see Abraham's good reputation. We see his courtesy. Thirdly, we see his honesty. His honesty. Now what I mean by this is in the sense that he will not take advantage of the generosity of others. There are others who appear to be offering him something very generously. And Abraham will not take advantage of their respect for him or of his position or a steam in their eyes to try to get something out of them. And that's the sense in which I'm using the word honesty. I want you to read with me through. You follow along verses 8 through 13 as we see how this works out. There will be a little bit of explanation needed here because of the customs of the day. Look at verse 8. He said to them, If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with Ephraim, son of Zohar on my behalf. So he will sell me the cave of Macpela, which belongs to him and is at the end of his field. Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you. Now notice first of all that even though all of these leaders have offered him a burial place, Abraham says, I want to pay the full price. He is not going to take advantage of their generosity. He says, I want to pay the full price for this cave where I can bury Sarah. Verse 10, Ephraim the Hittite was sitting among his people, and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of his city. Gate of the city being the place where legal transactions are made in that day. Verse 11, know my Lord, he said, listen to me, I give you the field and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead. Now it sounds like at first glance that Ephraim is being very gracious. Not if you understand the cultures of the day and the customs of the day. You see in that day and we know this from archaeological records of Hittite documents. We know how they did real estate in that day. In the Hittite custom, first of all, in all ancient Near Eastern customs, it was very common to bargain. And you started out with a very gracious offer, everybody realized that's not what you really meant. You would bargain back and forth until you came to an agreed price. First of all, that's what Ephraim is doing by saying, oh, and is give you the land. But notice, Abraham asked for a cave that was at the end of a field that Ephraim had. Ephraim offers both the cave and the field. We know that according to Hittite custom, if Ephraim had kept the field and just sold the cave, Ephraim would have been responsible for the taxes of the whole property. But if he can somehow get rid of the field too, the responsibility for those taxes goes to Abraham. So he's trying to work it to where he can get rid of the field as well. And notice Abraham's response. This is very telling about Abraham. Verse 12, again, Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephraim in their hearing, listen to me if you will, I will pay the price of the field, except it from me so I can bury my dead there. Abraham does not haggle. He does not say, Ephraim, I know you're trying to take advantage of me. He does not say, no way, will I buy the field? I'm only interested in the cave. He understands where he is. He is not going to blow his testimony here. He will not take advantage of someone's apparent generosity. He says, okay, I'll buy the whole field. I'll buy the field and the cave. My point here is that Abraham wanted to pay like anybody else would be expected to pay. Just because he is a man of such a steam in their eyes, just because he is a man that they respect so greatly, he will not take advantage of that. There are times when we need to accept generosity graciously. But we should never be people who can Ive, who design our way through situations in order to manipulate people to give us things. Just because we may be esteemed in their eye or we may have a certain position, some people are very cunning and designing at this. They work their way around and they work situations around so that others will feel obligated to give to them. That should never happen on the part of a man or a woman of God. Should never happen on the part of a Christian who's truly serious about living a consistent and honest life, working angles to try to get a free ride on everything is unbecoming of a child of God. Here is a man who said, I am going to be above reproach. I am going to be completely honest in the sense that I will not take advantage of someone's generosity. I expect to pay the full price for the field, for the cave. And if you insist on the field, I know what's going on here. I will buy the whole field and I will be responsible for the taxes. That's a man of honesty. But would you notice something else about him? He is also a man of meekness. Look at verse 14. Ephraim answered Abraham, listen to me, my Lord, the land is worth 400 shekels of silver. But what is that between me and you? Bear your dead. Abraham agreed to Ephraim's terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the hitites, 400 shekels of silver according to the weight current among the merchants. It's very easy to misunderstand what's happening here because again we're not familiar with their customs. This is a haggling type of thing, at least on Ephraim's part. He's trying to get the best deal he can and still look good coming out of it. So when he realizes that Abraham is willing to pay, he really jacks up the price. 400 shekels of silver, that's what the field is worth. We don't know what size field it was, but most commentators on Genesis think that this is an unfair taking advantage of Abraham who is in a difficult position of needing something quick. Ephraim really seems to be showing a heartless greed. Again we know from archaeological records of hit-tight documents that the average field of that day would cost four shekels per acre. I don't know if this was a hundred acre field. Kind of doubt it. Abraham was interested only in the cave, even the most precious garden area field that was could be used as garden would go for 40 shekels. But 400, but notice that Abraham doesn't fight. He doesn't haggle on the price, rather than accept that game he takes Ephraim's offer even though he may have been taken advantage of here. Now let me say a word about what meekness is. I believe there is a place for taking appropriate action, especially in legal terms if you have been wronged, but I think there are also in personal situations. There is a place for what the Bible calls meekness. Meekness is the quality which is willing to suffer wrong without personal retaliation. We know very little of that to be quite honest. We know very little of what that's about. Of suffering wrongfully, but with patience and self-control and leaving the result to God. We just don't know a whole lot about that because we are a culture that stresses our rights and if somebody steps on my right, you better believe I'm coming right back at him. I'm going to retaliate. I'm going to get what's common to me. We know very little about the concept of meekness and I understand that that can be taken too far, but I want to read you a passage in the book of 1 Peter where Peter is talking to brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ who are suffering unjustly, suffering unjustly. These people are slaves and he says this, slaves submit yourselves to your masters with all respect not only to those who are good and considerate but also to those who are harsh. Here's Peter's rationale. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. In other words, he's willing to leave the matter with God and let God take care of the issue. Verse 20, but how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called because Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. It's one of the rare places in the Bible that the Bible says, Jesus is our example. What is he an example of? This kind of meekness. Peter goes on to explain. Verse 22, he committed no sin. No deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to one who judges justly. He's talking about Jesus on the cross. If there were ever a time when someone suffered unjustly, it was there. The accusations that were hurled at him, the things that were said to him and about him, and he never spoke back a word of threat, never retaliated at all. He committed himself to the one who judges justly, the one who will take care of all things in the end, in eternity, and Peter says, he's your example in that. Now I recognize that what I'm talking about right now is probably one of the hardest things to grapple with in life. Where do you draw the lines? Where do you just back off and say, I know I'm being taken advantage of here, I'm not going to lose my testimony over this. I will suffer wrongfully and I will commit that to God and let him take care of it. Where do you do that and where do you take appropriate action to guard your interest? I know that that's not always an easy call. I just would suggest that there are times, especially in personal relationships, where the relationship in our testimony outweighs the need to have our rights met. And in that case, we must be willing to suffer unjustly and leave the results to God. That is what the Bible calls meekness and that's exactly what Abraham is doing here. He is being unfairly treated. He's being unjustly taken advantage of because he is in a bad spot. He needs a place to bury his wife within 24 hours. Ephraun knows he's got him over a barrel and he mistreats him. And Abraham says, I'll leave that with God. I'm not going to lose my testimony over this issue. In caring for the details, he demonstrates that he is a man of God. He demonstrates a good reputation, courtesy, honesty, meekness, even in the way he cares for details about burying his wife. But there's one other thing quickly that Abraham sees that we see Abraham doing here, not only expressing his grief, caring for details. We also find him in verses 17 through 20 demonstrating his faith. So Ephraun's field in Macpillot near memory, which both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field was deeded to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the hitites who had come to the gate of the city. Afterward, Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Macpillot near memory, which is at Hebron in the land of Canaan. So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the hitites as a burial site. It almost sounds like he's repeating himself over and over again, doesn't it? He's saying the same things several times. Whenever the Bible does that, it's usually for emphasis to emphasize what's being said. And that's exactly what's happening here because God wants us to see here as a man who, first of all, has trust in God's promises. You see, in that day, he's not going to be a it was important to be what the Bible calls buried with your fathers. And that meant that you should be placed in the same burial place as your ancestors. That was very important for people in that time. If Abraham had done that, he would have taken Sarah back to Err. That's where all their families buried. But you see what Abraham is doing here? Abraham is placing his statement, his faith in the promises that God has made. That's not your land anymore. This is your land. Remember God told him. Remove yourself from your kindred, your family, your land. Go to a place I will show you. That land is Canaan. And that's why over and over again, this passage says, this is where I buried him. Gives the specific details where the field was, what it was close to, makes the point that it was in Canaan. The point is here is a man who is trusting God's promises. You know, the way we bury our dead ought to show that we trust in a place called heaven, that we have faith in what God has said, that this is not our land down here, that we have a home and our home is not here. It's in heaven. That's where we're going. That's where our home is. And even the way we bury our loved ones ought to demonstrate our trust in God's promises, that that's where they are and that's where we're going. That's what Abraham was doing, demonstrating his faith in the sense that he's trusting in God's promises that this is now his home. But he's also demonstrating his faith in the sense that he's demonstrating his testimony to others. Again, the reason why this is mentioned so frequently here, the emphasis is on the fact that he is burying Sarah in a land of promise as a testimony to other people. Remember, Moses is writing this as Israel is journeying through the wilderness. And this is one of those testimonies that this is the land God has promised to you. Abraham was saying to you, four, five hundred years later, this is your land. Abraham is showing you by testimony that he has confidence that God has given us this land, canon, and it would be an encouragement to people who were wondering in the wilderness that they had not yet reached their destination. Their land was the land of Canaan and the way we bury our dead ought to be a testimony to other people, not just showing our trust in God's promises of heaven, but showing them that that is our home and a testimony to future generations that we know heaven is where our loved ones are and heaven is where we will be. I hope that if we have opportunity to plan what will be done at our funerals, that we will make sure that whatever is said and done, it will bear testimony to others of our faith in Jesus Christ. We've watched Abraham bury his wife. We have watched him grieve her. We have watched him care for the details of ranging the funeral. And we've watched him bury her with a sense that I have faith in God's promises and I'm testifying to others that this is our home. We've watched him do that. And I think God wanted us to see that so that we would learn how to deal with death. We deal with death by yes, yes, expressing our grief, openly, honestly, in a real way, not trying to shove it down to appear to others to have everything under control, but expressing our grief but tinged with hope. We deal with death by caring for details in a way which maintains our testimony to those around us. And we deal with death by demonstrating our faith that God has promised us a home and it is not here. It is not here. The way we plan for our passing and the way we plan for the passing of our loved ones hopefully will be to show that testimony to others that we have a better home awaiting us. One where we will never be separated from each other again. One where we will never say goodbye and there will be no death. That, that is our home. Would you pray with me? Father, we look forward to heaven. Even as Abraham demonstrated his faith in the land you had promised, may we demonstrate our faith in the place you have promised us. And even as we deal with very real, strong emotions regarding our loved ones and we will miss so much, I pray, Father, that we will maintain that testimony of knowing there is a place you have promised us. And even as we care for details that we will show the kind of godly character that would please you and would show our faith to others. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.