How Shall We Die

In this sermon the pastor begins by musings on the order of thinking about death and life, noting that both are intertwined: we cannot truly live until we are prepared to die, and we cannot be ready to die until we have truly lived. He then turns to biblical examples to illustrate different ways people meet their end. He first examines Judas Iscariot, portraying him not just as a betrayer but as a businessman who chased success without regard for the cost of discipleship, ultimately dying unfaithful. Next he describes the rich man of Luke who, despite wealth, fine clothing, and religious activity, dies unprepared and ends up in torment because he neglected the reality of judgment. The pastor then moves to the early church, recounting the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, who died “unclean” after lying to the Holy Spirit, and Stephen, who died unafraid while proclaiming Christ. Finally, he reflects on the Apostle Paul, who endured suffering, imprisonment, and martyrdom but died unashamed, having kept the faith. Throughout, the speaker urges listeners to examine their own lives, to avoid the fates of these biblical figures, and to live in a way that prepares them for a faithful, courageous death.

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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!

I am preaching this morning on the subject, how shall we die, and tonight on how shall we live. The staff got together this week and agreed, nine to one against me, that it should have been how shall we live in the morning and how shall we die at night. And so being outvoted, but still being the pastor, I'm preaching this morning on how shall we die in the morning and how shall we live tonight. Sounds like a song, doesn't it? It occurs to me that in either order one would be, correctly speaking, because while it is true that you are not ready to live until you are ready to die, you're also not ready to die until you're ready to live. And so either particular order would be all right. In 1923, the world's ten richest men that lived in America met together for a several -day consultation about money and possessions and the affairs of big business. In 1948, a newspaper reporter who was interested in such things gathered them together for another meeting. But when he attempted to do so, because he wanted to learn what had happened to them through the years, not one of them was to be found. Because within those 25 years, America's ten most wealthy and most influential productive businessmen were not available. One of them was a fugitive from the law. One was in the penitentiary. Two were hiding out in foreign countries. And five of them had committed suicide. How will you die? I know that death is not a pleasant thought, but the Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that to judgment. And so I think that in preparing to live, man is wisely consulted if he will give himself to a good deal of consideration as to how he's going to die. And I found this. Most people die like they've lived. There is one deathbed repentance in the Bible that none would despair, but there is only one that none would presume. The Bible says we are to make our peace with God, to make our path straight. Today, now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. Today, there's something exciting and something glamorous and something mysterious about tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. We're always going to do better tomorrow. But we never do. Deathbed repentances back in the early days were quite common, but they tell us that because of drugs and because of those medicines which knock us out and make us unaware of the fact of death, that nine out of ten people who die in hospitals these days, and most people do die there, they say, nine out of ten persons are not conscious when they die. And the sedative that is given and the drugs that are administered are usually not taken consciously. The individual does not normally know that he's going to die, and he slips off into death and eternity in exactly the same state of life that he has existed before the death experience. How will you die exactly as you've lived? I looked through the Bible recently, and I discovered some very interesting deaths. I want us this morning to give consideration to five of them and see if they fit any of us. First of all, there was a man named Judas. We all remember the name Judas. The very connotation almost blisters the tongue of decent men. The Bible says that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And the words of men's names mean something. We wouldn't name a dog Hitler or a little newborn baby girl Jezebel. Well, Hitler's just as good as Harry, and Jezebel is just as good as Judy, but the name means something, and so we stay away from it. But Judas has had a connotation of betrayal and death that men, especially Christian men, have despised through the years, and yet so many of us are Judases. Now, when I think of Judas who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver, I used to think of him as a slant -eyed crook who came in with a black cloak over his shoulders and the money bag on his left hand and a dagger in his right hand, and he came slant -eyed and sneaking in and plotted from the very beginning to destroy Jesus and to thwart the the will of God and steal the money and betray Christ and he who later hanged himself with remorse probably had nothing in his mind ever even more remotely distant from the truth than that. To the contrary, Judas was a prospering businessman. Judas was a man who conspired to do great things and aspired to be number one in the kingdom of God. Even the very disciples thought like this. You remember in Matthew chapter 18 they were all having a meeting of the Sanhedrin one day and all of the preachers were sitting around discussing who was the most important and who was the greatest and one of them even had the blatancy to speak up and say Jesus which one of us is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven because though they were following Jesus Christ there was a very real degree to which they had never truly understood the concept of the disciple relationship that one is totally given to his self and he does not live for himself anymore. Judas was like that. It was a good deal to be a Christian. All the crowds were coming in. The Sunday school attendance was going up. Everybody was jumping on Jesus' bandwagon. It was just the thing to do. One woman came one day and said Lord I'd like for my sons to be great politicians. Let one of them sit on your right hand and be the president of the kingdom and let the other sit on your left hand and be vice president of the kingdom of God. Now she thought that would be a nice thing for her sons. I can imagine that impetuous Peter must have come and said Lord let me organize a navy and if you get in trouble I'll train all the swordsmen. I've had a lot of experience in the ship. I've fought the enemies throughout the years and I'm a pretty good warrior. Let me take care of that. Jesus Christ made a triumphant entry yonder into Jerusalem. The Bible says they met him with hosannas and grand psalms and hymns and songs and the theme of the ages was now glissandoed into one tremendous crescendo when all of the world was honoring Jesus Christ in his finest moment on the face of this earth. Now here was Judas standing to one side. He said say this looks like a growing concern. I think I'll make some money out of this. I think I'll be the treasurer. Let me keep the books. While we'll take money in from every source this thing is going to be a paying proposition. You don't even have to you don't even have to pay anything. Why if the master wants to stop a funeral procession he raises the dead. If he wants to have money to pay his taxes he works a miracle. He takes it out of the mouth of a fish. If he wants to feed the poor he merely works a few loaves of bread and a few pieces of fish and all of a sudden there's enough for 5 ,000 people. Think how much we're going to have for nothing. Well I can bring all of my stocks and bonds and sell them and the master will say a few magical words over them and I'll be a millionaire. I'll keep the books. I'll reinvest. I think I'll sign up for treasure. And there are a lot of us who honestly would admit that we are a little bit like that. We really enjoy the benefits of the gospel. Oh it's so wonderful to know that there's a nice church on every corner. To know that on down at the corner of 1st and Main there's a there's a church in 2nd Main there's one and you don't even have to drive to town. There's one right next door in my neighborhood. And the friendly cop on the beat in the spire of the church down by the friendly neighborhood corner both give me a kind of a a sense of security with God and with man that things will always be like that. It's good to get dressed up and go on Sunday morning and so I'll go down and pay a little homage to God and I'll put in my appearance and toss in a few dollars because I remember the preacher saying some kind of of spiritual mumbo -jumbo about if you give so much you get back more and that sounds pretty good. Then the evangelist comes to town and he begins to preach and the popularity of the church goes up and someone said if you want to see how popular the church is why look at the crowd on Sunday morning. You want to see how popular the preacher is look at the crowd on Sunday night. You want to see how popular Jesus is check it out on Wednesday. Oh but it's a popular church and a popular evangelist and and it's just the place to go it's where it's at it's the thing to do and the Sunday school starts to grow and the outreach is multitudinous and the crowds grow and the choir increases and the spirit of God grows and everything's wonderful and everybody likes a winner. When things are going bad it's hard to get folks to come and when they're going up it's a little bit easier and we all flood in and we flock in and it's just the thing to do it's a going concern and so we all start out so well. Then two or three Sundays go by and the preacher starts talking to us about going out on Monday nights to go visiting. Well now wait a minute I don't know about that you know it might rain. I bet there are a lot of people in Corpus Christi who thank God they are alive and can go visiting, rain or no rain. That was headed for us, you will recall, less than three hours before it veered off and went down there. And so a lot of us, we enjoy the benefits of the gospel, but when the preacher starts talking about visiting and about tithing and about prayer meeting and about discipline and about witnessing for Christ and about walking a straight and narrow line for Jesus in school and door to door knocking and all of these things. Now some of us, we don't know about that. Judas was a little bit like that. Everything was great. The crowds were coming in. The popularity of Jesus Christ rocked the world from stem to stern. And then one day Jesus started talking about a cross. He started talking about follow me unto death. I'll give thee a crown of life. He said something about not ten percent. He said forsake all to follow me. Yonder on the horizon there loomed three grand crosses upon the center cross of which the very Son of God was to bleed and die in an anonymous experience called Calvary because of which the world would never be the same. Old Judas said wait a minute. Nobody talked to me about any cross. Nobody said to me anything about any discipline and any death. I think this is a bad deal. I think I'll get out. Back to the fishing nets. Back to the tax collecting. Back to the merchandise. Back to the world as it was in the days of the North. So shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. Back to marriage and social orders and pleasure. Back to life as it was. I hadn't counted on any death, on any crucifixion, on any discipline. I thought it was all amazing grace. I didn't know there was anything expected of me. And he thought it was a bad deal and he decided to get out while the getting was good. But he thought since he was going he'd just cash out and make a few shekels on the side. Always with an eye to the dollar. And so he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The very word Judas today is anathema in the life and tongue of a Christian. And yet is he any different than so many of us? The church begins to get popular and we start to come and everything looks great. And then Brother Faust gets on the phone and says now I'd like for you to be a Sunday school teacher this fall. We have a little class of six or seven boys and girls and nobody to tell them about Jesus on Sunday morning. Now you'll have to visit on Monday nights and come on Wednesday nights and study on Thursday and Friday and Saturday nights and call your kids Saturday afternoon. You'll have to be here and discipline and study and pay. You'll have to work. You'll have to give something of yourself. It's not all a free ride. And so a lot of us say well I hadn't bargained on any of that. Where it's at is one thing but I didn't know that that was where it was at. And so like Judas a lot of us just drift off into spiritual limbo and die unfaithful. We start out well but we end so poorly. Judas died unfaithful. There's a second man. He was a very rich man. We find his story in the book of Luke. You'll recall that he died unprepared. Listen to his tragic story. There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And the Bible tells us that this rich man died. And it says, and in hell he cried and prayed and said, Father Abraham send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame. That was the only prayer in the Bible prayed to a saint and it was not answered. He was a rich man. He had wealth and possessions. He had cared for himself. He had cared for his children's education. He had cared for all of the material needs of life. He was clothed in purple and fine linen. That means he was royalty. And one who was the political leader of his people in those days was also the spiritual leader of his people. So he was probably a king or a queen. I know he couldn't well very well been a queen obviously could he? Well today he might have been. He was probably a king or a priest or a prince or a bishop. He was some kind of a leader of his people. And he was a very religious man. He was a very educated man, a very affluent, a very wealthy, and a very religious man. Now he was religious and he was wealthy, but he was lost. He had prepared religion. He had prepared wealth. He had prepared education, but he had forgotten that he was appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. And though he would have been a member of the church today and a member of the most prominent social clubs in the community and a member of all the highest strata of his life, he was still lost. I imagine that the Jerusalem Gazette must have come and heralded the news from far and wide that a very prominent citizen had died, but he was lost. And his great friends had dined on the finest sherbets of Egypt and quail on toast and luxurious linen shirts as the servants fanned him, forgot that this man was lost. Those who came from far and there at his every beck and call as the stable reverberated with a sound of pedigreed horse hooves beating and servants running to and fro to wait on him had forgotten he was lost. And as in his benevolence, this very good man, because he didn't have to let that beggar stay there, he cared about the beggar because he let him stay there and he gave him goods and he gave him gifts and he allowed him to be fed and he cared for his subsistence. But the beggar forgot that he was lost. It seemed that everyone had forgotten he was lost. And he himself never realized he was lost. I imagine that it took him two days to open up all the insurance policies that he had. And all after all of the will was read, all of the benevolent goods were passed around to this society and that charity and to his friends, and his youngsters' college education was endowed and the future was assured, but he was lost. The rich man made all of the preparation of life, but the main one, he died unsaved and went to hell. He died unprepared. There's another man. Turn with me over to the book of Acts, please. We need to read this one together if you have your Bibles. Please turn to Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5, verse number 1. You will remember that a great revival was going on in the early church, and everybody was trying to be religious and was trying to conform because when real revival breaks out and those who are spiritual begin to do spiritual things, those who are not don't like to be shown up. And so a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, and he kept back part of the price, his wife also being a party to it, and he brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles' feet as though to say, here's our offering, here's what we've sacrificed to give to the poor, but Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part of the price of the land? Well, it was remained, it was yours to do what you wanted to. He says, you've lied not unto men but unto God. Now look at verse 5. And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost, and great fear came on all them that heard these things. The young men arose, wound him up, carried him out, and buried him. Now this man was a Christian, and he went to heaven. There are five accounts in the Bible of the sin and the death. One is extreme sexual sins in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Another is perverting the word of God to justify your own sins. Another is mishandling the things of God as did Belshazzar. And as the apostle Paul said in Corinthians, some have taken the things of God, and they have eaten damnation unto themselves by partaking of the Lord's Supper, the vessels of God, unworthily. That is, they partake in the spiritual things. They preach, they deke, they visit, they sing, they ush, they do, they sit, they do all of these things, but they're unclean, and the patience of God runs out, and the Bible says they died. Now here was a man who's very alive. A Christian was alive to the Spirit of God. Ananias died unclean. He started out so well, he put on a big front. He appeared to be something that he was not. He appeared to be very spiritual. And when everyone was really digging down in dedication, he said, I'll be dedicated to, and he sold the land, and he brought all of the money to make his great display of sacrifice, and said, here's what I'm sacrificing, but he kept back most of it from himself. And God spoke to the preacher's heart and said, this man is lying, and he said, you haven't lied unto men, you've lied unto God. Now I want you to turn quickly over to 1 Corinthians with me. Let's look at one of these examples of the sin unto death. 1 Corinthians chapter 5, 1 Corinthians chapter 5, verse number 1. Well, there, pages were stuck together. It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication is not as much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife. There is a man living in open incest either with his mother mother -in -law or stepmother and you are puffed up and have not rather mourned but he that had done this deed might be taken away from you for i verily as absent in body though present and present in spirit have judged already as though i were present concerning him that hath done so done this deed in the name of our lord jesus christ when you are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our lord jesus christ here's what he commands to deliver such in one and to satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the lord jesus now there are those who think that he says we'll just turn him over to satan so satan can kind of cuff him around a little bit and make him a little bit better and you'll learn not to do badly and then i'll bring him back and you'll be a better christian but satan never cooperates with god to do anything good for the believer turn him over to satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit might be saved in the day of the lord jesus means kill him get him out of the way so that his soul will still be saved now the bible says that many people are literally going to make heaven by the very skin of their teeth oh listen what an awful day that will be what a humiliating embarrassing day when men like ananias who have died unclean with unconfessed unrepentant unforgiven sins on their soul are dead and stand before god embarrassed and humiliated i challenge you with all my heart to live a pure and holy clean life else you die as ananias unclean as a fourth man the bible tells us about this man all the way through the word of god i like especially to think about him again from the book of acts turn with me back there in your bibles if you will please acts chapter 7 verse 54 i tell our deacons all of the time that we're to do more than just sit around and make decisions and make recommendations of the church we have a duty to perform for the spiritual care of the church that respond that involves witnessing and handling problems and visiting and caring for the physical responsibilities of the church and if a pastor becomes derelict in his spiritual responsibility he should be relieved of his pastorship and if a deacon becomes spiritually derelict in his responsibility he too is to be relieved of his place of servitude in the church but here was a good deacon as are most deacons that i know good godly men and this man was out in the street corners preaching and witnessing the gospel of christ the old hard -hearted pharisees would have none of it and when they heard these things they were cut to their hearts and they gnashed on him with their teeth but he being full of the holy ghost looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of god and jesus standing on the right hand of god and said behold i see the heavens open and the son of man standing on the right hand of god then they cried with a loud voice and stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord and cast him out of the city and stoned him and the witnesses laid down their feet at a young man's uh their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was saul listen and they stoned stephen whimpering and whining and begging and saying it's a bad deal i'm sure i ever became a christian and they stoned stephen kind into one corner of the brick pile saying have mercy i can't take it and they stoned stephen calling upon god and saying lord jesus receive my spirit and the 60th verse says and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice lord lay not this sin to their charge like jesus when he had said this he fell asleep if judas died unfaithful and the rich man died unprepared and stephen died and ananias died unclean i submit to you thank god that stephen died unafraid letter read go ahead they picked up those stones and said renounce recant deny your faith in jesus christ or die he said far away boys for me to live is gain is christ and to die is gain that's the way to go and the time may well come that you and i for our faith in jesus christ may be persecuted and condemned and stoned and killed and i wonder how will die i'll tell you how wouldn't you like to go like this Only two times Jesus Christ is shown in standing in heaven in the next life. And one is when he stands at the door to knock at the heart of an unbeliever in respect and honor and dignity of a lost man. He wants to be saved for whom he died. And he stands at his door and knocks and says, let me in. And another time is when a man dies the death of persecution. He stood up to meet Stephen coming home. He said, boy, I'd like to go like that. If I had to die for Jesus Christ, oh, I hope I can die a champion faithful to the end. Well, if you cannot go into junior high school or into the bank where you work or the grocery where you shop, and you cannot stand the stones of persecution there where people ridicule you and make fun of you for witnessing for Christ for being a Christian, if you can't take that, then you sure can't take this. How will you die? It's like you've lived. This man lived that way. They thought he was a nut. Imagine a professional businessman in a business suit, a regular everyday guy standing on the street corner on a soapbox preaching Christ. He didn't care. He didn't care for the stones of their looks. He didn't care for the stones of their words. He didn't care for the stones of their rejection. They didn't invite him to their cocktail parties. They didn't invite him in the kind of a world they live in. He was some kind of religious nut. He didn't care. That was his way of life. So because he lived unafraid, he died unafraid. How will you die? Just exactly as you've lived. Now the fifth and last man is this. The Apostle Paul, of course you remember, Saul of Tarsus converted, world changer, Bible writer, prophet and saint of God, Paul died unashamed. Unashamed. For you and I to sit here in a church with beautiful stained glass windows and comfortable seats, nice air conditioning and say, I'm a Christian. I'm a follower of the way. I love Christ is one thing. But for this giant of intellect in his day when the only Christians were the ignoramuses, to follow himself in the Christian way, to live in the caves and the caverns with the offscarrings, the discards and the rejects of society and say, I'd rather take my stand with them than with all of the schools of wisdom in the world and not be able to stand for Christ. Christ, that took something. Over yonder in the book of 2 Timothy chapter 4, I would like for you in closing to read that with me. And let's see how he died. I want us to get the picture. Paul had a tough life. Tradition has it and scriptures infer that he was probably hunchbacked, had some kind of stuttering speech impediment, had perhaps some type of disease that caused his hand to shake, found it very difficult to see, and was always in personal, physical anguish. Now he's lived like that all of his life for the gospel. But now when friends and loved ones had forsaken him, when he had been in the deep, when he had been beaten, when he had been rejected and persecuted, and tried when he'd had to run for his life, when he was misunderstood, and most of all when the care of the churches came upon him, and those whom he was trying to help the most turned on him and misunderstood him, he was now a broken old man. I want you to see him handcuffed, perhaps, between two other prisoners. Maybe a flickering, fleeting flame from the candle is about to go out. You can barely see. Probably the filth in the dungeon is almost obnoxious, and the rats run to and fro, and the water drips, drips, drips down the side of the cave he begins to hear a noise kind of a snitch snitch snitch sound like steel on steel with a great personal difficulty he raises himself on one elbow to see just a glimmer of light coming in between the bars in the cell he looks and listens and he says what's that one of the tall stature ask roman guards spits up on the floor and says what's that you'll learn soon enough jew you'll find out he says what is it he said that's the guillotine sharpening it up for tomorrow morning tomorrow is the day we get rid of one more jew it's your day his heart pounds in his breast and he calls over one of the young prisoners and says write for me he writes young timothy in the gospel his great son in the faith and he says timothy i've made i've made a mistake i think this jesus business is a bad scene it's just not worth the price of admission i mean you go back to your loved ones your family go on back home and and forget the whole thing serving jesus christ is really not worth it is that what he says no not at all listen all the time the drip drip drip of the water all the time the snitch of snitch of the steel blades as he prepares for death i charge thee therefore before god and the lord jesus christ who shall judge the living and the dead it is appearing in his kingdom preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables watch thou in all things endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist make full proof of thy ministry for i am now ready to be offered the time of my departure is at hand i fought a good fight i have finished my course i have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to all them also that love his appearing that's the way to go you're not ready to die until you're ready to live but you're not ready to live until you're ready to die judas started well and finished so poorly judas died unfaithful ananias died unclean the rich man died unprepared stephen died unafraid paul died unashamed how will you die let's bow our heads together in prayer our father we pray today that every one of us shall examine our hearts and look closely at the direction of our life and see where we are going awry and amiss and get hold of ourselves and get hold of those things that are wrong and dear god may we be faithful may we be clean and prepared and courageous and unashamed of christ and not be the cowing church quivering in one corner of a dark world but the church militant standing true pure strong aggressive for jesus christ in the world that needs thee so much oh dear god help us because we realize that every one of our hearts though we may die in the next moment we probably will die a long time from now but in the time between now and then oh god may we so live that at any moment whether we have a hundred years or a hundred seconds left our lives shall be lived to the glory and honor of Jesus Christ stir us and bless us and help us to do it in Jesus name our heads are still bowed and eyes still closed