“Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave?”
Psalm 6:4-5 NLT
A grim subject to write about this morning, and not one that is a popular discussion point in every day life. Death is a certainty. No-one will escape its clutches. Human beings get to a point in life when their bodies wear out and they die, and David was aware of that because he took pains to remind God of the fact. David seemed to be afraid of his enemies and prayed for rescue and salvation from death, a common prayer by anyone in fear of mortal danger. News is coming in this morning of a plane crash in South Korea with many deaths resulting. Those people would have cried out to God for rescue, whether they knew Him or not. But most people (over 90%) die peacefully in their sleep, having fulfilled their “three score years and ten” or even more if they have the strength.
David reminded God that dead people cannot praise Him, and that is the issue. We have a short span of life available to us during which we can offer God our praise and worship. A time when we can communicate with Him, thank Him, love Him, serve Him and enjoy Him, as the Westminster Catechism records. But inevitably there will come a time when this opportunity will pass. As we read the Davidic Psalms, we can see that David had a relationship with God, birthed in the long hours while he watched his father’s sheep. Times when he praised and worshipped God with his harp, finding the sweet spot of relational bliss with his Creator. He knew that God loved him. He knew that God supplied his needs, and he knew that he could communicate directly through his prayers and conversation with his Lord. But in this moment of crisis, he appeared to be facing into death, and was appealing to God for rescue.
We know that there comes a time when our physical bodies die and are disposed of as being of no further use to us. Most people think that there is something going to happen after we die, and there are some strange theories about what that is. We have incarnation, where we return in a different body. Some believe that everyone goes to a place they call Heaven. Others believe that when people die they enter a period of blackness, the ultimate finality. But the Bible tells us that when we die, our spirits live on and end up in a holding place we call Heaven or hell. Jesus told a story about the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, and from the conversation Jesus had with the adjacent penitent thief at Calvary, we know that there is a place called paradise awaiting us. So the question facing into mankind is, without exception, “Where will your spirit go after you die?” We pilgrims have made the right choice, because we are children of God. But what about those around us, who perhaps have yet to make a decision, and for whom the clock is ticking? In Acts 2:40 we read, “Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”” And these words still reverberate today, as we repeat them to the lost and dying around us. The most important choice that a human being can make is about their post-death future.
Dear Father God, please lead us to those who are open to Your Gospel, and are waiting for someone to share what You have done for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 