Coming to Grips with Death and Dying
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About this ebook
Increasingly we hear stories from those who claim that they have spoken with the dead and have learned that bliss awaits everyone who "arrives on the other side." At death's door, some people claim to see visions, deceased relatives, or a flash of light.
This eBooklet attempts to answer some basic questions: What should be our attitude toward death? Can we accept the experience of others as a valid basis for anticipating what will await us when we die? Is there an intermediate state prior to heaven or hell?
Dr. Lutzer takes the data of both the Old and the New Testament to show that only through God's revelation can we be sure what awaits those who die. For many people, death is but a doorway into the glories of heaven; for others, it will be a frightening disappointment.
Erwin W. Lutzer
Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer is Pastor Emeritus of The Moody Church, where he served as the senior pastor for 36 years. He is an award-winning author and the featured speaker on three radio programs that are heard on more than 750 national and international outlets. He and his wife, Rebecca, have three grown children and eight grandchildren and live in the Chicago area.
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Coming to Grips with Death and Dying - Erwin W. Lutzer
Notes
Introduction
During the last few months of her struggle with cancer, Jacquelyn Helton kept a diary. Her thoughts and feelings would become a legacy for her husband, Tom, and her eighteen-month-old daughter, Jennifer.
In her diary she wonders what death would be like. What clothes should she wear for burial? She thinks of her daughter. Who will love her? Put her to sleep? In her writings she tells Jennifer that when it hurts she should remember that her mother would have cared. Then she thinks of her husband and the needs he will have after she is gone.
Finally she cries out, What is the matter with you, God? My family is not a bunch of Boy Scouts who can figure all these things out for themselves—you’re some kind of idiot to pull something like this!
¹
Denial, anger, fear, depression, and helpless resignation—all of these feelings erupt in the souls of those who face death. No matter that death is common to the human race; each person must face this ultimate humiliation individually. Friends and family can walk only as far as the curtain; the dying one must disappear behind the veil alone.
Tom Howard says that when we face death we are like a hen before a cobra, incapable of doing anything at all in the presence of the very thing that seems to call for the most drastic and decisive action. There is, in fact, nothing we can do,
he writes. "Say what we will, dance how we will, we will soon enough be a heap of ruined feathers and bones, indistinguishable from the rest of the ruins that lie about. It will not appear to matter in the slightest whether we met the enemy with equanimity, shrieks, or a trumped-up gaiety, there we will be."
Yet, some people believe that the almost universal fear of death is unfounded. When actor Michael Landon, of TV’s Little House on the Prairie
and Bonanza,
lay on his deathbed, he confided to friends that he saw a bright white light
that eased his fears and made him look forward to what awaited him on the other side. He died calmly, anticipating what he called quite an experience.
Hollywood is obsessed with the theme of death. In 1991 at least a dozen movies dealt with the hereafter. Reincarnation, altered states of consciousness, and glad reunions in a metaphysical place such as heaven are popular themes at the box office. Larry Gordon, chief executive of Largo Entertainment, says, "People are looking for something that makes them feel good. We