I am going to tell you, first of all, about some bad news. It’s bad news that we don’t like to think about.

The news is that we all have a disease, a terminal illness. And there is no exception. Every one of us is going to die. Sorry about that, young people. I don’t want to play some kind of funeral dirge. But we might as well face the music and bite the bullet: we’re going to die. In spite of all of the attempts that have been made, we have discovered that this disease is 100 percent fatal. We’re all going to die. I grew up hearing that on the sawdust trail.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 says it: “The living know …“ what?

“That they shall die: but the dead know not anything.“

I remember my preacher father trying to make that text clear, and how some people had it mixed up, including the little school kid who quoted it wrong: “The dead know that they are dead, but the living know not anything.“ And perhaps that’s not too far off when it comes to the realization that we seldom think about the great certainty.

Roger Williams said that there is one great certainty, death, surrounded by three uncertainties, when, where, and how. Someone has correctly said that “the heart is like a muffled drum, beating a steady march to an open grave.“ And the songwriters have even taken it up. It’s supposed to be a hymn, I guess. But who wants it? ‘We’re going down the valley, going down the valley, going down the valley one by one. Going down the valley, going down the valley, going toward the setting of the sun.“ Maybe there are boys and girls who say, “This isn’t for me; I don’t care what happens to me when I am eighty.“ Remember, you’ll be seventy-eight someday. But you don’t need the Bible to prove this.

All you have to do is drive down the streets and down the country lanes. You come across them again and again—silent monuments, thousands of them, millions of them. You don’t need to prove it from Scripture. They are monuments to broken hearts. That’s the way it is. So if you look at the Bible, if you look at reality, you have to admit that those of us who are alive in this world today are in the minority. Of all the people who have ever lived or died in this world, we are by far the minority. Most of the people in this world are dead and in their graves. True? So, how does it feel to be in the minority?

Here is a personal experience from just a few months ago. My mother died a couple of years after my dad. She was ninety-one. She got sick one day and died the next. I was by her side along with others the last four hours. They told me what the monitor would do. It would go flat. I held her hand and felt it get cold and saw her breathe her last. And I cried with the rest of them. I’ve had similar experiences as a minister the last thirty-seven years. But something hit me that I wish I could describe. It’s somehow on the television screen in the back of my mind, but I can’t feel confident in saying it clearly yet. I wish I could learn how. But something hit me. The mystery and the wonder of life. We have a song that we used to hear and sing about Grandfather’s clock:

Ninety years without slumbering Tick tock, tick tock His life’s seconds numbering Tick tock, tick tock But it stopped short Never to run again When the old man died.

The thing that hit me was where did this life that just left come from? It didn’t come from anywhere else but God. Then I began remembering what my dad would say on the evangelistic platform: “There isn’t a scientist in the world who has been able to create a little kernel of corn. They can take that kernel of corn and analyze it, dissect it, break it down, and tell you exactly what is in it and in what proportions. But you can assemble those same elements in the chemistry lab, put them together in the same proportions, and end up with nothing.“

That kernel of corn could he out in Aunt Lucy’s woodshed up near Newberg, Oregon, for ten years, and my brother and I could go out and play in Aunt Lucy’s woodshed. We could take these little old kernels of corn and plant them and get some water on them, and they could produce hundreds of other kernels of corn. Can you explain that? They tell me that they have done the same thing hundreds of years later from the pyramids of Egypt. The wonder of life!

We know what we are made of. Have you seen the list? A certain percentage of this and that—all the chemicals contained in our bodies. Of course, we are composed mostly of water. You can probably go down to the drugstore and get all those other elements, bring them home in a sack, add water, and stir. What will get you get? A muddy mess.

We cannot produce life. We can’t even come close.

Take the genius that man has demonstrated. The airplane is one of the greatest inventions, as you know. The Boeing 747 is longer than the Wright brothers’ first flight. I remember the first time I took a look at the 747. We’d had Emilio Knechtle at our Mountain View church in the Bay Area. One of the men in the church went with me when I took him back to the airport, and we stood and watched our first 747. As that thing took off, I could hear him say under his breath, “This has got to be of the devil.“ We marvel at the way this giant defies gravity!

But I haven’t heard of a 747 that has had a baby 747 yet. I haven’t even heard of one that is expecting. I haven’t seen a Chevy have a baby Chevy yet. Why not? Because we are now into the life department, and only God is responsible for life. This is what hit me when I saw life leave the one who meant so much to me.

People used to come to me and say, “How do you know there is a God?“ And I would use a favorite Adventist technique. I would prove God from the prophecies. I mean, this is incredible, isn’t it? Predictions made hundreds of years before, and fulfilled right to the date! If this were not enough, I’d say, “Well, I am sorry. God has been kind of a ‘given’ for me. I never really struggled with the existence of God. I grew up believing this way. Why don’t you read C. S. Lewis? He’s good on that.“

But since my mother left and the wonder of life hit me with such force, if anyone ever says to me again, How do you know there is a God, I’m going to say, as nicely as I can, “You fool! Go look in the mirror. Who do you think is keeping you going?“

I think, until this happened to me with my mother, I actually labored under this delusion that I was the one that kept me going. I eat, don’t I? and I breathe, and I get some exercise. How deluded can we be? Consider the wonder and the mystery of life! Until some smart person comes along with the ability to produce the smallest iota of life from nothing (and that will never happen), the argument is closed. Don’t even bother to waste your breath. The wonder of life! Let’s use our common sense and our reason. And I think if some of the people who are trying to be backsliders would get a handle on this, what a difference it might make!

Now, with the wonder of life, comes the good news. There are three things that we can know today. The first one is the bad news we began with: We’re all going to die. The second is the good news that we’re not going to die. John 11:25 contains the words that are written over the tomb of George Washington and over countless other tombs. “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.“ Then comes verse 26: “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?“ How long has it been since you read that one?

For some reason, when I was a boy, John 11:25 was my favorite text. On Friday nights, or perhaps Saturday nights, someone would say, “Let’s go around the circle with a favorite text.“ And someone always would use up John 3:16 right away. Have you ever had that happen to you? It was a relief to be able to say, “I am the resurrection, and the life …“ Why did I like that?

Being a preacher’s kid, I often found myself attending funerals. I learned to hate them. I went to those meetings on spiritism and saw the pictures on the screen, and I began to dread even the thought of it. I can remember one time when my folks were gone and my brother and I were at home alone one night. It was springtime, and the aroma from the flowers out in the neighbor’s yard came in through the screen porch. It was the same aroma or fragrance that they had at the funeral parlors. And I just about had a nervous breakdown. My brother had to go to the neighbors to get them to come over and comfort me.

I remember my first funeral as a minister. You don’t practice on funerals, and it was a terrible experience. Then I began to read John 11:26: “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.“ Do you believe that? Can you believe that and be a Seventh-day Adventist? John said it in John 11:26. He that liveth in me and believeth in me shall never die. I got so intrigued by that that I began to look through all of John’s Gospel, and his letters as well, looking for every time he said something like that. And he said it again and again and again and again. We already have eternal life. We’re not going to die. Never! “Believest thou this?“

But if that’s true, then where did this story come from in John 11? You know the setting. Lazarus was Jesus’ good friend, because in his home Jesus didn’t have to talk in parables. Jesus used parables for two reasons, opposite to each other. He used parables both to conceal truth and to reveal truth. It depended on which set of ears you had on. But in the home of Lazarus He could talk straight out. He loved it there. Then they brought Him word that Lazarus was sick, and Jesus made that uncanny statement, “This sickness is not unto death.“ The messengers rushed back to Lazarus with the news, but he was almost unconscious. They told him the news, but it was hard to believe. It was even harder to believe when he “died.“ That was a very difficult time for his sisters. Did Jesus tell the truth or not? “This sickness is not unto death.“ True or false? Aren’t you a Seventh-day Adventist? Aren’t we the ones who have been trying for years to make sure that people are good and dead?

I love to shock Seventh-day Adventists. You know what? A funeral, a good funeral, has turned out to be one of my favorite occasions. I started a sermon like that in a new parish one time, and there were several people who didn’t hear anything I said the rest of the sermon. But I like a good funeral. You mean it’s possible to have a good funeral? Sure! Haven’t you ever read about the good one two thousand years ago when two companies met in the little village of Nain? One group was coming out of the village in a mournful trek toward the graveyard. The other group, coming from down below, was led by the Lifegiver. That was a good funeral. I’d like to have been there, wouldn’t you?

We were on a tour with Dr. Seigfried Horn. It was supposed to be an evangelistic tour, but it wasn’t. It was an archeologi- cal tour. I had a little interest in archeology when I started the tour, and I had even less when I finished the tour. But as we were riding along in the bus, headed for another dig so we could look at more pot fragments, I saw this little village up on the side of the mountain. I said, “What village is that?“

“That’s the village of Nain.“

“Nain! We’re going there, aren’t…“

No, we had to go on to look for more pot fragments. That was the day I just about threw my shoes through the bus window. I tried to visualize the ancient village, but they said it isn’t the same anyway. The old village of Nain is eighty feet below the present ground level. It’s been destroyed, covered up, and rebuilt several times. But I wanted to go see it because there was such a good funeral there!

Fortunately, I’ve seen other good funerals. Do you know why? Because real Christians never die. I love to go to the hospital and visit people who have what we call a terminal illness. And I love to say to them, “This sickness is not unto death.“ Isn’t that true?

Several days after hearing the news about Lazarus’s illness the disciples heard Jesus say, “We’re going to go back to Bethany. Our friend Lazarus is sleeping.“

The disciples, of course, were afraid that they were going to get taken with their Master by a vicious mob of people, so they said, “Let’s not go back there. If Lazarus is sleeping, let him sleep. He’s been sick, he needs his sleep.“ But the disciples misunderstood, and finally Jesus had to say it plainly: “Lazarus is dead.“ He didn’t like the word. Jesus preferred the word sleep, and so do I. Don’t you? Because sleeping is not all bad.

I can still remember, at La Sierra College, welcoming the time to sleep on Friday nights and Sabbath afternoons (after our missionary work was done, of course). Sleeping is not all bad.

My brother and I used to fight in the back seat of the car on the way home from a long trip. That was our favorite pastime. And our parents would say, “Why don’t you go to sleep?“ but that thought never crossed our minds. Then they would say, “Do you want to know how to make the trip go faster? Go to sleep and time will go fast, because the very next ‘instant,’ when you wake up, we’ll be driving in the driveway.“

Do you remember that? Yes. You close your eyes, and the very next instant you’re home. How would you like it, Mend, to know that you were going to go to sleep right now, and the very next instant you’d see Jesus coming! Is that bad news? That’s wonderful news! “He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die“ (John 11:26). I like the idea of sleep. I love to go to a Christian funeral and tell the loved ones, “He’s not dead. She’s not dead. Only sleeping.“ Because there is the waking-up time. And it makes no difference whether I’ve been asleep for five thousand years or more, like Abel, or ten minutes. When Jesus comes, it will all be the same.

We’re also told that in the resurrection our thoughts will take up where they left off. That’s interesting. Imagine coming up in the wrong resurrection with the people from Chicago and the Mafia. As they wake up and rub their drowsy eyes, suddenly they hear a gunman from New York shouting and cursing. Over in another direction they hear a harlot from Kansas City screaming, and they realize that they have awakened in the wrong resurrection. But they come up with the same thoughts that they went down with: “I’ve got to get him.“ “I have to gun him down!“

But now picture waking up in the right resurrection. Like my friend and colleague in northern California, Ben Riley, who was on his way to the conference office one day. He had a head-on collision and was killed instantly. At the funeral all the ministers came, and the conference president spoke to us. He reminded us that in the resurrection our thoughts will take up at the same place they left off, and he pictured Elder Riley coming out of the grave and saying, “I’ve got to get to Oakland. I’ve got to get to …“ And then he sees an angel there, the one who has been with him all through his life. And the angel says, “No, you’re not going to Oakland. I am going to take you to a better place.“ And suddenly it will dawn on him. It’s the glorious resurrection morning! Aren’t you thankful for the good news, the better place?

So, I don’t care whether you’re six years old or ninety. We have both bad news and good news today. We know that we’re going to die, but we know that we’re not going to die, only sleep. And the reason we can know this is because of the third thing we can know. It’s found in John 17:3: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.“ Isn’t it interesting that we can know God. We can know the Lord.

I’d like to share with you one single goal: That everybody might know the Lord, one-to-one, person-to-person. That we might know what it means to take top priority time alone with Him day by day. Is that too much of a goal? If we all knew Jesus, the church would have nothing but power, the power of heaven. Because people who know the Lord are the ones He uses to reach other people who need to know Him. So my question for you, neighbor, is, Do you know Him? Are you on speaking terms with Him? Can you say like Billy Graham did during the “God is dead“ controversy, “No, He’s not dead. I talked to Him this morning.“ Do you know that God knows your address? Does your whole day revolve around priority time alone with Him? Something more than a text for the day with your hand on the doorknob? Do you know Him?

I guess you know, if you’ve studied righteousness by faith at all, that knowing Jesus is the entire basis of the Christian life. Apart from that there is 110 Christian life. Only behavior. And that’s why our young people walk away from the Christian church today. Behavior religion makes them tired, and they’ll give it up. Everyone on that diet will give it up sooner or later. The entire basis of the Christian faith is in a personal acquaintance with Jesus. Do you believe that? Do you know Him? God help us with that kind of goal, because that’s what eternal life is based on. It is during this time alone with Jesus day by day that we accept His amazing grace and take courage that we’re never going to die.

Down in Texas some years ago, there was a golden-haired little girl who took sick, and it wasn’t long until her eyes closed for the last time. Father and mother and friends came to see her. The friends tried to comfort the parents as they shed many tears. Then came the moment at the end of the service where the people passed by the casket. This father, who did not believe in God or faith or religion, looked down in bitterness and said to the little one, “Goodbye, goodbye forever.“ And he went away. Then the mother came. She was a loving Christian, a believer in the good news. She leaned over and kissed the little one and said, “Sweetheart, we’ve had some wonderful times together. We’ve had six happy years. Good night. Mama will see you in the morning, at the daybreak, when the shadows flee away.“

What made the difference? Jesus made the difference. And He still makes the difference today. No wonder Elder Richards wrote that poem which is still one of my favorites:

How the changing years have found me Far away from thoughts of home. Now no mother bends above me When the time for sleep has come. But it brings my poor heart comfort And it gives me peace within Just to think that I am little And my mother tucks me in.

As I kneel there with my brother By the bed above the stairs And I hear our gentle mother Saying, “Boys, remember prayers.“ Then she comes and kneels beside us. “Father, keep them from all sin.“ Oh, her kiss is tender, gentle, When my mother tucks me in.

When at the last the evening finds me And the day of life is done. All the things of earth that bind me Shall be broken one by one. Then, O Lord, be thou my comfort. Calm my soul, thy peace to win. Let me fall asleep as gently As when Mother tucked me in.

But there are many of you who are not even going to fall asleep, because Jesus is coming very soon.