IS DEATH A DEPARTURE OR AN END?
The evaluation of her life is greatly manifested by the legacy that she left behind concerning her love for The Lord Jesus Christ and her tremendous attitude and example that she set for all of us.
JOH 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."
MAT 23:11, our Lord "but the greatest among you shall be your servant."
When you think about Doreen going home to be with the Lord, you have to think about it from divine viewpoint and not human viewpoint.
ISA 55:8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.
ISA 55:9 "For {as} the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
When someone asks, “Why does a person suffer and die when she has given her life to God and has served God as Doreen did throughout her life?”
ISA 57:1 The righteous man dies and no man takes it to heart; and devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil.
ECC 7:1 A good name or reputation is better than a good ointment, and the day of {one's} death is better than the day of one's birth.
We celebrate birthdays but we mourn death days.
One's death is to be preferred to one's birth.
When we are born, we are born into a life of sorrow, pain, suffering, heartache, disappointment and uncertainty about our future.
When we die as believers, we are "face to face with the Lord," 2CO 5:8 and in a place of no more sorrow, no more pain, no more death, just perfect happiness; REV 21:4.
REV 21:4 and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."
What's better, the day of your birth when you were face to face with a strange doctor and relatives or the day of your death when you will be face to face with Him who loved you and gave Himself up for you?
For Doreen lived her life with the attitude that our Lord had when He came which is found in ***MAT 20:28 "The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve,"
If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, in dying, God has saved the best until last.
No matter what happened during a person's lifetime, the emphasis is on the importance of one decision that prepares every human being for death.
For the Bible says in Act 16:31 "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved."
ACT 4:12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved."
REV 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.
We live for Him because He created all things for His pleasure they are and were created.
Dying is a part of the Christian experience which brings glory to God and which does not depend upon the free will of the believer but on the sovereign will of God.
1CO 15:55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
1CO 15:57 Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is that allows God's people to have hope and confidence and to be able to handle suffering and death without freaking out?
- Doreen knows that physical death is a matter of the sovereign will of God.
Job expressed this in JOB 1:21, when after the death of his friends and members of his family and all his wealth, Job said "The Lord gave, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
PSA 68:19, "God is to us a God of deliverance, and to the Lord belongs escape from death."
Solomon said ECC 8:8 No man has authority to restrain the wind with the wind, or authority over the day of death;
- Doreen knows that physical death is precious in the sight of the Lord, PSA 116:15, "Precious [valuable] in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."
- Doreen has learned that the death of every believer, both winner believers and loser believers still means that the moment Doreen died, she was face to face with the Lord.
This is described in 2CO 5:8, where we are said to be "absent from the body and face to face with the Lord."
What is left behind is the biological part of you, your body.
- Doreen now knows that death leads us to is a state of perfect happiness because everything related to your body that can produce pain is gone, REV 21:4.
REV 21:4 "And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; furthermore, there shall no longer be any death, no longer will there be any mourning, and no more crying, and no more pain; the first things have passed away."
- She knows that death is an appointment with God that all members of the human race have to keep, HEB 9:27.
HEB 9:27 "It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment.
Remember that ECC 3:2 There’s a time to give birth, and a time to die;
- Doreen knows that death is simply a shadow and a valley to pass through to enter into the eternal state.
David said in PSA 23:4 "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
You may have friends and loved ones by your bedside but they cannot see what's going on in the spiritual realm.
- Doreen would like her family and friends to know that death has lost its power over believers, ISA 25:8, 1CO 15:57.
ISA 25:8 The Lord will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
1CO 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Doreen would say something like this: “People have been held in bondage and slavery all their lifetime because of not understanding the victory over death, don’t fall into that trap; HEB 2:15.
HEB 2:15 And the Lord came so that He might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Why
I've sat beside a tiny crib
and watched a baby die
as parents slowly turned toward me to ask,
Oh pastor why.
I've held the youthful husband's head
and felt deaths sting and sigh.
A widow looks with tears and said,
dear pastor tell me why.
I've seen a gold star mother weep
and hold a picture nigh
her lonely breast and softly ask,
why Pastor, why?
I've walked away from the cemetery
where stillborn babies lie.
A mother stretches empty arms
and asked me Pastor why.
I've watched my drunken father leave
our home and say goodbye.
While I looked into my mother's face
I asked please tell me why.
I've heard the white tip-tapping cane
which leads a blinded eye
and then a darkened lonely voice cries,
Preacher show me why.
I've caught a fiance's burning tears
and heard her lonely cry.
She held an unused wedding gown
and shouted, Oh pastor why.
I've heard a cancer patient say
it is gain for me to die
then looked into his daughter's face
and mutely whisper why.
I've seen my mother stand besides
two tiny graves and cry
and though she never let me know,
I know she wondered why.
I've heard an orphan faintly say
who gazed into the sky
though Mom and Dad have gone away
my Preacher will know why.
I tip-toed to my Father's throne
so timid and so shy
to say Dear God, some of your own
are wanting to know why.
I heard Him say so tenderly
their eye's I'll gladly dry,
though they must look through faith today,
tomorrow they'll know why.
If now they find the reason that
their hopes have gone awry,
in heaven they will miss the joy
of hearing me tell them why.
And, so I found it pleases Him
when I can testify,
I'll trust my God to do what's best
and wait to find out why.