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January 23/24, 2016
Jason Meyer | Psalms 18:30
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.—Psalm 18:30
Introduction
This focus on the Word is so crucial because we live in a world where people make a very moving and emotional case against God’s way being perfect and against his word being true. This year for Sanctity of Life weekend we are considering end-of life-issues. I want you to hear firsthand the case being made that runs counter to the word of God.
I watched a video this week produced by a right to die advocacy group called Compassion and Choices. They promoted the story of 29-year-old Brittany Maynard. In 2014, Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with an aggressive, terminal form of brain cancer. She sought treatment and surgery but the tumor grew. Convinced that she had months to live she decided to relocate to Oregon with her family so that she could access its death with dignity law because aid in dying was not available in California. On November 1, 2014, Brittany took medication to end her life under Oregon's "Death with Dignity Act.”
In a statement, Compassion & Choices said she "died as she intended—peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones. Brittany chose to make a well thought out and informed choice to Die With Dignity in the face of such a terrible, painful, and incurable illness. She moved to Oregon to pass away in a little yellow house she picked out in the beautiful city of Portland."
When she moved to Oregon and had the prescription for the aid in dying medication—she said “I have a tremendous sense of relief now that I have this prescription filled and I have it in my possession.” Her husband, Dan, said that “it was Brittany that was in control of things and there was such an amount of relief to know that she didn’t have to be terrorized by that tumor any longer. She said that “the freedom of death with dignity—it exists because of choice. I choose this for myself. Who thinks that they can sit there and tell me that I don’t deserve this choice?”
Her story was seen by 16 million Americans on people.com. Arthur Caplan, of New York University’s Division of Medical ethics, wrote that because Maynard was “young, vivacious, attractive … and a very different kind of person” from the average patient seeking physician-assisted dying—then averaging age 71 in Oregon—she “changed the optics of the debate” and got people in her generation interested in the issue.
In 2014, aid in dying bills existed in four states; lawmakers in 25 states introduced bills after Brittany’s story became well known. The president of Compassion and Choices closes the video by saying it was a perfect match—they, as an organization, were ready to raise their sails, and the wind of Brittany’s message filled their sails so that they are moving full speed ahead. She closed by saying, “I don’t think anything can stop us now.” The last slide showed that in Oct. 5, 2015, when California governor Jerry Brown signed the End of Life option act into law.
Physician-assisted suicides are allowed in Oregon, Washington, Montana, New Mexico, and Vermont. The Minnesota Compassionate Care Act is modeled after Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. The Minnesota Compassion and Choices group said that the bill is being considered in the legislature this session.
Brittany’s story evokes so many profound emotions. It stirs up such sadness and appeals to our sense of compassion and dignity, but it is being used in the service of a sinister deception. Would any of you receive a full frontal assault on your faith like, “God’s ways are not perfect; God’s word is not true”? You would bristle and the message would be rejected.
You have to say it in a more subtle way—appeal to emotions—paint people who disagree with you in the worst possible light. It is all—first and foremost—an authority question. Who is in control? Do I have property rights over my own body? Am I in control—am I lord of my life and death? Right to die says “yes, we are.” The central confession of the church is that Jesus Christ is Lord—so we take a very different starting point. Jesus is the Lord of life and death. The God-like power to decide when to die in the womb or when to die outside of the womb is not in our hands. We cannot say, “I am the master and the captain of my fate—I call the shots—just leave me alone and don’t pretend that you have any say in the matter.”
The testimony of Psalm 18:30 directly contradicts the testimony of “right to die.”
This God—his way is perfect;
the word of the LORD proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
This text has a three-fold claim: God’s way is perfect, God’s word is proven, and God is a Protector of his people.
Claim #1: God’s Way Is Perfect
Did you hear that? The Bible says, “Make no mistake; this God does not make mistakes.” The phrase “this God” is a way of drawing the reader’s attention to all that has been said about God thus far. The God who directed the Psalmist’s steps and was sovereign over everything—even writing a script in which death was at David’s doorstep—did everything perfectly. He didn’t make any mistakes.
This is an important truth to take with you into the dark. That is why the verse before claims that God lights his lamp (v. 28). Even in the darkness, God is the Psalmist’s source of life and light.
Claim #2: God’s Word Is Proven
Proven means tried and true. Do you see that in the second phrase? “The word of the LORD proves true.” Psalm 18 makes the same case as Psalm 12:6 by using the image of proven or refined and pure:
The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.
God’s word is proven—what he says is tried and true and trustworthy. God’s perfect way is a light in the dark and the word of the Lord is made for the fire. When you go into the fire with the word and hold onto it—you come out tried and true: tested, proven, passing the test.
Claim #3: God’s People Are Protected
The third claim is where we come into the picture—if God’s way is perfect, and God’s word is proven (tried and tested and true), then we can enter into the fire with confidence that God has not made a mistake and that God’s word will prove true—take refuge in him. Trust in the Lord, rest in him, find refuge in him—don’t lean on your own understanding, don’t go your own way, don’t listen to the counsel of those who reject God—all of that will mislead you and lead to perishing—not eternal life.
The shield is something you need for battle—not when you are eating pizza or napping on the couch. God’s way, his word, and his presence as a shield are for the darkness, the fire, and the day of battle.
This one verse (Psalm 18:30) encapsulates the message of Psalms 1-3. Those who trust in God as refuge (Psalm 2:12) and hold fast to his word and ways instead of the way of the wicked (Psalm 1) will testify that God is there as a shield around them (Psalm 3:3).
If the word of the Lord proves true, then what does it say specifically about Physician-Assisted Suicide? Does it speak clearly? The answer is “yes.” I received help this week in reading a book by David VanDrunen, entitled Bioethics and the Christian Life (Crossway, 2015). Of the many arguments he made, I want to share the three I found the most compelling.
First, the Bible makes it clear that God is the Lord of life and death.
There is a time to be born and a time to die.—Ecclesiastes 3:2
No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death.—Ecclesiastes 8:8
When the time drew near that Israel must die.—Genesis 47:29
The end of life ultimately transcends human control and shows the limits of human capabilities. Humans that try to play God play with forces they can’t fully control or fully understand.
Second, the Bible does not commend suicide (quite the contrary!).
There are no direct commands against suicide (many regard it as self-murder and thus obvious breaking of the command to not murder), but negative examples abound in narratives portraying suicide as a divine judgment. There are five suicides in the biblical narratives.
1. Judges 9 portrays Abimelech in a profoundly negative way. He killed his 70 brothers in a successful attempt to secure power in Israel (Judges 9:5–6), but then his suicide (assisted suicide—his armor bearer killed him upon his orders) is introduced as God’s punishment for killing his brothers: “thus God returned the evil of Abimelech” (Judges 9:56).
2. Saul is the next example (1 Samuel 31:4). He was rebellious, self-serving, and suffered from the torment of having an evil spirit. He repeatedly struggles for control, tries to kill David who served him faithfully, he even turns to a witch to get counsel from the dead (1 Sam. 28). The climactic low light was his assisted suicide.
3/4. Examples three and four, Ahitophel and Judas, are also closely parallel. They both were followers of their masters (David and Jesus) and they both became traitors (Ahitophel helped Absalom; Judas helped the chief priests), and both hanged themselves (2 Samuel 17:23; Matthew 27:5). Suicide is portrayed as the “fitting end of a wicked and unrepentant life” (VanDrunen, p. 201).
5. The fifth example confirms this conclusion. King Zimri has the dubious distinction of having the shortest reign of any king in Israel (seven days). He became king as a traitor against King Elah, but then his life ended seven days later when he burned a house around him in order to avoid capture (1 Kings 16:18). Once again, suicide is presented as divine justice: “Because of his sins that he committed, doing evil in the sight of the LORD” (1 Kings 16:19).
Third, the Bible commends resisting suicide.
Job was “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8). After being afflicted by Satan under the sovereign control of God, Job’s wife tempts him: “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die” (Job 2:9). But Job responds with repose upon the sovereignty of God: “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:9). The Bible says that Job did not sin with his lips when he said this (Job 2:10).
Job’s suffering was so intense (he did not have modern medicine to ease his pain) that at times he longed for death (Job 3:21–22), but he refused to give up by embracing death. Rather the Bible commends him for remaining steadfast (James 5:11), and he was directly commended by God (Job 42:7).
Notice how different Job’s response is compared to Brittany Maynard. Brittany arrogantly assumed that she was lord over her life and death and so at the end of her life she said, “my will be done.” Job humbly put himself under the sovereign hand of God in the dark and remained steadfast under trial by saying, “your will be done.”
4. Application: How Do We Navigate End-of-Life Decisions to the Glory of God?
The best way to frame the issue would be to show that God’s path is surrounded by two ditches.
Choose the Longest Life Choose the Best Life Choose Death
Conservative Ditch The Path of Wisdom Liberal Ditch
We have already summarized the “right to die” ditch that says “choose death—you deserve this choice.” There is a danger now of overcorrecting and overreacting and saying, “I am not pro-death; I am robustly pro-life for all of life” and you assume being pro-life means “choosing the longest life possible.” That is the ditch on the right side. Being pro-life does not mean choose the longest life possible even if it means being sustained by machines for much of the end of your life. The longest life possible may be a lesser life; the shorter life may be a better life because it gives a greater opportunity to glorify God and have communion with God and family.
Let’s make sure that we set the stage for this discussion. In the past, “life expectancy was much shorter” and “most people died at home, surrounded by family, after relatively short illnesses” (VanDrunen, Bioethics and the Christian Life, p. 195). By way of contrast, he says, “Today most people live much longer lives, but many of them spend those extra years not in their homes but in institutional settings, and many of them die not after short illnesses but after a protracted aging process during which medical technology preserves an increasingly feeble and uncomfortable earthly life” (p. 195).
But someone may argue that any decision to forego treatment is choosing death. That is why many people instinctively overcorrect and swerve into the other ditch in supposed “pro-life” zeal. I’m really pro-life! Does “pro-life” mean that one must always do everything possible to extend life as long as possible in every situation? The answer is “no.”
Staying on the biblical road and out of either ditch will depend upon making a massively important distinction between killing and letting die. VanDrunen says that if a person has terminal cancer, the choice to forego an experimental drug or another round of chemotherapy is not choosing death, but one form of life over another kind of life. It is not a choice to die. Cancer is already bringing death however much one wishes it would not. In the face of death, the choice to forego treatment is a choice not about whether or not to live, but about how to live the life that remains.
“Instead, the choice to forgo more chemotherapy may be a decision to live a somewhat shorter life that is free from the debilitating burden of chemotherapy and that enables the person to enjoy her remaining life more—to finish projects, to spend time with loved ones, and to get her house in order” (VanDrunen, pp. 210–211).
VanDrunen says that we have to ask a crucial question of intent: “Am I choosing to forgo treatment because I am aiming to achieve death, that is, because my death is my goal?” That is wrong. Christians must refuse to seek death, whether for ourselves or for others. Or, “Am I choosing to forgo treatment not in order to die but in order to live a certain kind of life that the treatment would make impossible?” (VanDrunen, pp. 217–218). If one chooses a shorter life for the sake of a fuller life, then they are not choosing death.
Consider another example. A patient has a terminal illness in addition to kidney failure and is approaching death because of that terminal illness. “If continuing dialysis is simply staving off death from kidney failure in order to die imminently from something else, there is no compelling reason to insist that dialysis must go on. In this situation the choice is not even between death and life—it is between one kind of death and another kind of death. The Christian may rightly choose to succumb to the affliction that provides the best opportunity to die in spiritual communion with the Lord and in fellowship with loved ones” (VanDrunen, p. 230).
Conclusion
Some people may think it would be preferable to die suddenly. David VanDrunen asks us to think through this view and see why it is an understandable desire at one level, but a great misfortune all the same. People that say “the best death is a sudden death that involves no extended period of pain or suffering” miss the fact that “a sudden and unexpected death leaves no time to put one’s house in order, no time to say goodbye to loved ones, no time to reconcile with those who are estranged, and, most importantly, no time to be sure that one is right with God (VanDrunen, p. 175).
David VanDrunen gives just the right response—since you don’t know when you are going to die, you should be ready at all times. “The responsible Christian life involves having one’s house in order now, cultivating relationships with loved ones now, reconciling with those who are estranged now, and taking account of one’s standing before God now. As Paul says, “We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. … Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 5:20; 6:2). Don’t live in arrogance that assumes you are in control—that your plans will happen. James 4:13–15 says, no, “if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that”!
You may notice that what I have shared thus far applies to everyone—whether you claim to be a Christian or not. This is all true by virtue of creation—God owns his creation. For Christians it is doubly true. What do you mean? We are doubly owned—not just owned by God because of creation but also because of redemption.
One of my favorite stories growing up was the little sailboat twice owned. “There was a boy that made a sailboat with his father’s help. One day he was playing with it on a lake and the wind picked up and it floated away across the lake. He thought he would never see it again. They happened to go to a second hand store sometime later month later and the boy saw his sailboat. It was unmistakably his! He quickly bought it and carried it out of the store—almost hugging it. He said under his breath. I made you and I bought you. Now you are doubly mine.”
God says to us in the gospel: “You are doubly mine.” So glorify me with your body. Does a person have a property right over his own body to choose death? The gospel says “no” squared!
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.—1 Corinthians 6:19–20
“You can’t give your heart to God and keep your body for yourself” (Elisabeth Elliot). Make it your ambition for Christ to be honored in your body—don’t just find a life verse, but a life and death verse like Philippians 1:20:
It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
God’s way is perfect—his word is proven—he is a protector for his people. Let’s rest in our God as our strong refuge. Let the sovereign love and wisdom of God wash over you as we sing to our Sovereign Shield.
Closing Song: "Sovereign Over Us"
Sermon Discussion Questions
Outline
Main Point: God’s way is perfect, God’s word is proven, and God’s people are protected.
Discussion Questions
Application Questions
Prayer Focus
Pray for a grace to make much of Christ with our bodies, whether by life or by death, because we were bought with a price.