The sting is gone

I was shocked to hear of the death of a friend of mine over the weekend. He was about my age and seemed in fine health, but a massive heart attack suddenly claimed his life.

Many who are left behind, including me, will miss him.

As for him, he is at long last with His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in a place that is so wonderful that according to the Bible, mere words are inadequate to describe it. We have no basis on this fallen earth with which to compare heaven.

I wondered this morning if he was part of the welcoming committee to the four people who were murdered by Somali pirates yesterday in their yacht that was loaded to the brim with Bibles. These fine servants of God had decided to dedicate their lives to distributing Bibles mainly to Muslim countries in the Mideast and Africa and had been sailing in these dangerous waters distributing Bibles for many years.

I say I wonder if my friend might be a part of the welcoming committee for them in heaven, because a major part of his life was spent smuggling Bibles into Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria during the cold war prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. If he had been caught distributing Bibles in those communist countries he would have been put in prison and probably put to death like these faithful servants of God.

During the period of time that my friend was performing this dangerous task we were best friends. I would pray for him when he left for a trip and he would be gone for months at a time. When he got back we would celebrate together, and I would spend hours on end listening as he told fascinating stories of miracle after miracle whereby he was all but sure to be caught, and then God directly intervened and miraculously prevented his capture and he escaped.

My friend was fearless and did not even consider the possibility of his imprisonment or possible capture. He wanted others to receive the good news of Jesus Christ and if he died or was imprisoned in the process, well, that was all right with him.

His courageous nature was derived from his love of God and his unwavering faith in Him. He knew with certainty that God loved him enough to send His Son to die on a cross as payment for his sins and because of what Jesus did on that cross he knew that his eternal destiny would one day be to join Him in heaven.

He is there at this very moment and I wish I could be a fly on the wall as the Lord and he recount together his spine tingling adventures going through border checks with a trunk full of smuggled Bibles. The Lord is probably smiling as He recounts instructing guards with machine guns to just wave him on through.

Knowing him as I do, I’m positive that he would not want tears shed at his funeral on Friday. He would hope that his friends would celebrate his victory over death and his tremendous fortune of now abiding with our Lord and Savior. I understand that, but alas I will miss my friend.

I tend to look at the death of a close friend that is a born again Christian in the same manner as their having gone on a long voyage, and I will not be able to see them again for perhaps many years. I’m sad that my friend has gone on ahead of me and I will miss him; however it will just make our eventual reunion that much better at my homecoming. I am very happy that he has been able to achieve what we all are looking forward to; being called home to be with Jesus forever.

As someone has wisely put into beautiful words, “We were created by God and for God. Our bodies were not designed to last forever, because He wants us to live with Him”. My friend fulfilled his mission and now he is reaping his reward. I can picture the grin on his face right now

Does this make sense to YOU? I hope so, because there is nothing sadder than a funeral for a non-Christian where there can be no tears of joy shed… The Bible tells us that “Life is short”. Maybe you cannot distribute Bibles in a foreign land, but you can tell someone about Jesus today. If you get called for your voyage, what a nice thing to know that you were doing the work of the Lord when you got the call…

1 Cor. 15:54
Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.