Watching Men Die

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2 NAU)

Unless Jesus comes back first, we are all going to die (Heb. 9:27; 1 Thess. 4:15-17).  Every time I have visited a funeral home, buried a person, or been to a hospital to visit the terminally ill or worked with them as a therapist, I have been starkly reminded of my own mortality.  I take it to heart.

Most people avoid the issue of death.  This is why they don't visit nursing homes.  They don't want to be reminded of the inevitable.  But its better to be reminded of it in the here and now than in the hereafter. 

As a repentant old man writing about the futility of life without God, Solomon tells us that materialism, worldly happiness, and luxury ("a house of feasting") only blinds people to the truth of the inevitable.  This old guy knew what he was talking about, for he had drunk deeply from the worldly pleasures associated with wine, women, and false religion (1 Kings 11)  He had more of it than you could shake a stick at, yet at the end of his life, he reflects upon the benefits of being exposed to death rather than the passing pleasures of worldly gladness.  He says that the negative effects of blinding worldly pleasures are nothing in comparison to the sobering effects of being hit hard with our own mortality.  Here's a few things his brief reflection brings to my own mind:

• Death reminds me that I'm going to appear before the Judgment seat of Christ and be given rewards for faithful service grounded in pure motives or that I'll enter the kingdom with little to show for it (2 Cor. 5:10). 
• Death reminds me that I get only one earthly life and that I need to make it count for King Jesus (Heb. 9:27).
• Death reminds me that the wine, women, and the riches of the world are an exercise in futility, hopelessness, and vanity (Eccles. 1:13-14, 17-18; 2; 1 John 2:15-17).  
• Death reminds me that "in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." (Eccles. 1:18).
• Death reminds me that I'm not God.
• Death reminds me that you're not God.
• Death reminds me that Satan wants to destroy believers (1 Peter 5:8).  
• Death reminds me that my resurrection is certain because Christ's resurrection is certain (John 5:28-29; 1 Cor. 15; 1 Thess. 4:15-17).
• Death reminds me that Jesus overcame it on my behalf (2 Tim. 1:10). 
• Death reminds me that I'm going to experience God in His fulness without the ravaging effects of sin (Rev. 21:4; 22:3).  

That's a lot to think about, but its worth it.  Think about death.  Meditate on it.  I'm not calling for morbid introspection, but healthy, beneficial reflection.  See if you can add to the above list and make us all think further about this issue.  We get one earthly life before the return of Jesus, so let's live it for His glory and think hard about how to use it for Him and avoid wasting our lives.