Truth Magazine

By Guardian of Truth Staff

We are happy to announce the addition of brother Olen Holderby to the staff of Guardian of Truth. Brother Holderby has been preaching the gospel for about 50 years, with 38 of those years being in California. He has done local work in Florida, Arizona, California, Oregon, and Missouri, Gospel meeting work has taken him into many states from New York to California. Many of these preaching years have been spent helping begin new congregations or assisting small groups in obtaining their own facilities and toward further development.

Brother Holderby also has considerable background in the educational field, having taught in the public schools of California from the elementary through junior college levels. He holds lifetime credentials in both teaching and educational work. In addition, he has held credentials in the field of counseling, a work which he has continued for over twenty-five years. although he refuses to accept any pay for such work. We are confident that you will look forward to reading his timely articles in Guardian of Truth.

Guardian of Truth XXXVIII: 21, p. 8
November 3, 1994

By Ron Halbrook

Surveying the great amount of work to be done and the scarcity of laborers everywhere, Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38).

Surveying the faithful work done by departed laborers, the Holy Spirit pointed out that their example and influence continue to do good on earth long after they are gone to be with the Lord.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from hence-forth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them (Rev. 14:13).

This article is a tribute to three faithful laborers in the kingdom of Christ in West Virginia who have departed to be with the Lord in recent years. The Lord raised them up to meet a pressing need. They accomplished much good. Their works follow them and will bear fruit for years to come, but much remains to be done there as everywhere. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.”

Clyde S. Allen (1922-1991), Johnny Hall (1909-1991), and Walter Murphy (1917-1992) lived and labored in Mingo County, which is in southwest West Virginia, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains coal fields. Mingo County is wild, beautiful, and rugged terrain. The county’s western border is defined by the Tug Fork (a fork of Big Sandy River), which also marks the Kentucky-West Virginia border. This territory is best known for the infamous feud between the Hatfield and McCoy families. A more significant event for the region was the mine war of 1920-21 fought by the forces representing the mine owners and the forces of the miners aided by organizers of the United Mine Workers of America. There was truly “thunder in the mountains” when these two forces met in this little-known but significant encounter:

The West Virginia mine war of 1920-21 has been called America’s largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. In this colorful but largely ignored rebellion, some seven to ten thousand coal miners took up arms against their state and local governments and marched, in defiance of a Presidential ultimatum, against an army of some two thousand state constabulary, deputy sheriffs and volunteers. The two armies collided; machine guns chattered; thousands of shots were fired; planes dropped bombs, however ineffectively; and for a week the miners con-trolled some five hundred square miles of southern West Virginia (Lon K. Savage, Thunder in the Mountains, p. iii).

The miners lost this war, and it was not until the 1930’s that the mines of southern West Virginia were unionized. The mine war was recounted in a movie entitled Matewan in recent years, named for a town which was at the center of the conflict. Coal mining is still the backbone of the economy in Mingo County, and rich stories of the Hatfield-McCoy feud and of the mine war are still passed down from one generation to another.

Congregations of saints are scattered throughout the mountains of southwestern West Virginia. The churches served by these three men are scattered here and there near Highway 52 which passes through Mingo County. Churches in Mingo County are not served by what we call “located preachers” but by men who support themselves and en-courage all who can to participate in the pulpit work. Liberalism does not have the upper hand in this region, but battles with liberalism have been engaged during the last fifteen years. When someone suggested that some new classroom space be turned into a kitchen, I was invited to preach for a week in May of 1982 in order to help defeat the liberal spirit which was beginning to creep into the Beech Creek church. I was invited because someone had been reading my articles in the Guardian of Truth magazine. Since first going to Mingo County, I have held many gospel meetings there, held two formal debates (on located preacher question, 1985; on institutionalism, 1988), and engaged in many skirmishes on divorce and remarriage. The brethren in this area have been willing to openly study such matters and much progress has been made, as men such as Weldon Warnock, Mike Willis, and Larry Hafley have held a number of meetings. All of these efforts have been successful primarily because of the influence of Clyde Allen, Johnny Hall, and Walter Murphy.

Clyde S. Allen: Persistent Preacher Clyde Sydney Allen was born 12 November 1922 at Sarah Ann and died 11 September 1991 at his home in Baisden, near Gilbert. Brother Allen was 68 years old at his death. Like many people in the region, he had worked for many years as a miner and suffered from black lung disease. Clyde learned the truth after becoming an adult and came out of denominationalism. His convictions were strong and he very much wanted the truth of the gospel to be preached without compromise. He preached for the church in Gilbert, which is located right on Highway 52 as it passes through the town.

For many years Roy Hall held sway over the churches of Mingo County, and he taught much error on divorce and remarriage. His death came on 26 January 1990 when he was in his mid to late 80s, but he was still very active and vocal in June of 1983 when I held a gospel meeting at Gilbert. The seeds of truth on divorce and remarriage were planted at Gilbert at least as early as November of 1972 when Roy Hall was forced to debate his view that the put-away fornicator can marry a new mate (“Debate,” Truth Magazine, 1 February 1973, p. 204). Clyde knew that my coming to Gilbert would draw the ire of Roy Hall but wanted me to come and preach the truth anyway. A lively exchange occurred between myself and Roy Hall along with his supporters after my lesson on “The Home As God Instituted It,” but Clyde stood firmly for the truth.

Clyde’s wife Esther was a great asset to him in his work. The church at Gilbert was rather small for years, but Clyde and Esther simply would not give up. About twenty still attend the church there. When he died, I was in a meeting nearby and his wife asked me to help with his funeral service along with Bruce Murphy (from Beech Creek) and Hufford Williams (from Mouth Card, Kentucky). I spoke on “The Conversion of Saul” because Clyde like Saul was ready to change whenever he was convinced by the evidence of truth. Clyde Allen is buried in the Allen Family Cemetery behind his house at Baisden.

Johnny Hall: Sweet Singer Johnny Hall was born 5 April 1909 at Belo near Delbarton and died 27 May 1991 at Belo, where he lived all of his life, at the age of 82 years. Delbarton is a small community located about a mile from Highway 52. Johnny’s mother, Antha Starr Hall, was a faithful Christian, and it was through her influence that he began to serve the Lord after marrying Virgie Jones. He supported himself by working in the coal mines and often prepared sermons by spreading his Bible and notes on the floor and studying until two or three o’clock in the morning. Among those he converted was Elmer Spence, who later became a gospel preacher. After Ted Bowen was converted by Johnny Hall, Ted’s father (who was a denominational preacher) debated brother Hall through correspondence and was converted. Above all, Johnny was a highly capable song leader and even wrote several excellent songs. He was a member of the Caney Church of Christ but was often invited to hold singing schools or to lead the singing for gospel meetings at other churches throughout West Virginia and Ohio. Even after his legs were severely diseased, Johnny continued to serve as an elder and to teach Bible classes while sitting on a stool.

When I held a meeting at Caney in June of 1983, many liberals came and were exposed to the truth, which stirred up a hornet’s nest in the area. As a result, brother Hall went with me for a 3 1/2 hour study with three well known liberal preachers in the area (Cletis Smith, Hubert Compton, and Gene Clemons). In defending church sponsored social and recreational activities along with other institutional practices, these preachers argued that “whatever the church does, the individual does, and whatever the individual does, the church does.” We asked them if the three of them went into the coal mining business, would the church be in the coal mining business? They answered, “Yes!” This study was taped and copies were distributed throughout the region.

Part of one of my tapes was messed up and I asked Cletis Smith to replace it from his own recording of the study. He first agreed but I predicted he would find a “reason” to avoid giving me a copy. When I called him later to get the copy, he told this story. The tapes came from a church building which federal investigators thought might have been contaminated with radiation as a result of radio waves bounced off of two large relay reflectors in the area. Each tape was held together by a couple of tiny metal screws and Cletis thought they might be contaminated too so he destroyed all the tapes without making copies. (I did not make it up, folks, that is what Cletis said!)

Johnny later reported,

The Caney church has been working hard to weed out of our pulpit liberals and compromisers on institutionalism and on the issue of marriage and divorce. We want men in the pulpit who preach sound doctrine, who fight error, and who are known for standing clearly for truth. This meeting has done much to help people in Mingo County understand why Caney has taken its stand against liberal-ism of every kind. Everyone is not happy about it, but we make no apology for the truth of God! At Caney, we are united in the truth, are at peace among ourselves, and are gaining in spiritual strength (Johnny Hall, “Field Re-ports,” Guardian of Truth, 21 July 1983, p. 443).

Johnny used every avenue at his disposal for spreading the truth including correspondence, gospel literature, and tapes. By using tapes which he received from the church here at West Columbia, he converted a man out of the denominational Church of God.

I was in a meeting nearby when Johnny died in the hospital at South Williamson, Kentucky and was asked to participate in the funeral service along with Hufford Williams. After reading the obituary, I read Revelation 5:9-13 which pictures the beautiful scene of singing praises to God and to Christ in heaven. My comments were as follows:

As Christians we have the steadfast hope of being gathered around this throne of God and of the Lamb to join in singing their praises. Surely Johnny Hall will help to lead us in those songs and will sing with us there as he has done here. This is the hope of the faithful Christian. Those who had loved him and loved to hear him sing the praises of God, but who refused to serve the Lord, will never hear Johnny sing again. If you are not a faithful child of God, we hope this service will help you make up your mind to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ.

No husband ever had a more attentive or supportive wife than Virgie Hall. The Halls have graciously extended the hospitality and love of their home to many gospel preachers through the years. Virgie’s biscuits and gravy are out of this world! About sixty saints continue to meet at Caney. Johnny is buried in the Mahon Cemetery at Belo.

Walter Murphy: Steady Student Walter Burgess Murphy was born 18 April 1917 in Glen Alum and died on 26 December 1992 at the age of 75 years. Walter knew quite a lot about the Hatfield-McCoy feud which ran from the 1880’s until the turn of the century. He was born and lived for twenty-three years on land surveyed by Wall Hatfield of the Hatfield clan. “Wall Hatfield was father of 47 children by different women, and I personally knew over half of them” (manuscript by Murphy on Hatfield-McCoy feud). Walter said, “There hasn’t been a shootout in Texas to equal some we’ve had right here in bloody Mingo County” (Murphy ms.). Wall had a son named Ellison who was close to Walter and who said in 1935 that he had delivered over 700 babies. He was a preacher in the church of Christ but when he was called out at night to deliver babies, “You can rest assured about the second thing he put on was a shoulder holster that held a 32 Smith and Wesson revolver and know for sure he never left home without it” (Murphy ms.). Walter knew quite a lot about the coal miners’ war of 1920-21, too.

Walter was a member of and preached often for the Beech Creek church of Christ in the community of Devon, a few miles from Highway 52 and not far from Matewan. Devon is near Tug Fork. Walter enlisted in the U.S. Navy in October of 1944 and lived through the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. “It has left a scar on my mind I can’t forget. When you think about all those men that were killedthe older I get, the more vivid the picture gets” (“Murphy, Blevins Remember Attack,” Williamson Daily News, 7 December 1991, p. 1).

For many years Walter ran an old country store on Beech Creek and talked with many people about the gospel of Christ. The most impressive thing about Walter was his constant, steady study of God’s Word. The kitchen table in his house was always covered with his Bible, Bible study books, and notes except at mealtime, and often meals were eaten in and around the books and papers. While he was a man of deep convictions, he was also willing to study and accept any truth which was new to him.

For many years Roy Hall held “membership” at Beech Creek although he lived at Feds Creek, Kentucky. Roy Hall taught that God divorced Israel and let her marry Christ, in an effort to prove that God will accept people in unscriptural marriages if they “repent.” From the time that I began to preach at Beech Creek in May of 1982, Roy Hall tried every possible means to drive me out of Mingo County. Walter soon began to see through Roy Hall’s error on divorce and on a number of other things, but some hot battles were fought over a period of years before Roy Hall’s influence could be overcome.

Walter’s willingness to stand for the truth played a key role in stabilizing the church at Beech Creek. The week of 21 July 1988 I debated Bill Dawson at Beech Creek on the located preacher question, an issue Roy Hall used to divert attention away from the marriage issue in the minds of people. On 24-25 November the same year I debated Gene Clemons at Beech Creek on liberalism and institutional-ism. During both of these debates, Walter Murphy stood firmly for the truth and his influence was a great help. Walter’s wife Violet Hatfield had no patience with error and encouraged him in his stand for the truth in many ways.

The funeral for Walter was held on 29 December 1992 at the Beech Creek Church of Christ with Bruce Murphy and Jerry Vance speaking before a full house. The church has 90-100 in attendance and continues to uphold the truth. Walter is buried in the Hatfield Cemetery at Beech Creek.

These mighty men of Mingo County were not known to brethren far and wide beyond their area, but the work they did was vital to the cause of Christ. I hope these precious memories of the persistent preacher, the sweet singer, and the steady student will be an inspiration to brethren every-where to use their talents and abilities in the service of Christ.

Guardian of Truth XXXVIII: 21, p. 20-22
November 3, 1994

By Tom M. Roberts

Cruciform: “Shaped or arranged in a cross.”

Non sequitur: “The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion; an inference that does not follow from the premises.”

Most of us are aware of the danger of drawing unwarranted conclusions from faulty premises. If Newton had inferred that the sky was falling because an apple dropped on his head, he would have been guilty of a non sequitur. If one defines a belief in Christ and the church based upon a “gospel” that excludes “doctrine,” one’s premise is likewise faulty.

In religion, irrelevant conclusions are extremely common and, accepted at face value, become guideposts that lead into a spiritual wasteland. It helps little that the non sequiturs are committed by scholars with college degrees; in fact, a facade of scholarship disarms the initiate. Clothe this scholarship in the mantle of one of “our” colleges and non sequiturs assume the weight of biblical inerrancy.

Few books known to me are as full of non sequiturs while masquerading under the guise of scholarship as The Cruciform Church, a publication from Abilene Christian University Press. Written as a trilogy, The Cruciform Church (C. Leonard Allen) complements two earlier works: Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ (with Richard T. Hughes) and The Worldly Church (with Hughes and Michael Weed). Speaking from the lofty pinnacle of professorship at ACU, brother Allen strews one non sequitur after another throughout the entire book, with all the fervor of a man with a vision. Though a poor prophet, he is an excellent “blind guide” (Matt. 23:16), leading the unwitting into many ditches. His vision of the future misses the mark on numerous details. Though valid points are made, readers should exercise the caveat: “Let the reader beware.” Allow me to provide some examples of Allen’s faulty reasoning.

Non sequitur: The Past Controls the Future

In the preface, brother Allen commits the first error, asserting: “It is one of the great conceits of our time to imagine that we can sweep away the past and simply begin all over again at the beginning. We cannot.” Stating here what is repeated many times later, brother Allen claims that we are shaped by our past traditions and are unable to begin with a clean slate as though we are “historyless.” Thus, churches of Christ are unable to think, act or decide on direction without carrying our baggage from past generations into the future. We are captured inescapably by our traditions.

That this conclusion is unwarranted, one has but to note that Paul, the persecutor, blasphemer, and Jewish apologist said of the past: “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Phil. 3:7, 8). Further, it was Christ who warned of the danger of traditions since they “made void the commandment of God” (Matt. 15:6). Restorationism demands constant renewal to the New Testament ideal of revealed Christianity by the shedding of traditions. True repentance makes this possible, even as the church at Pergamos was challenged to put away the Nicolaitans. Contrary to Allen’s assertion, we can be converted to Christ to the degree that we excise the past completely and begin a new in Christ.

Non sequitur: “Accepting a Past”

It is a non sequitur to deny that “one’s own church or movement stands above mere human history” (p. 5), if by “one’s own church” one intends “the Lord’s church.” The Lord’s church is unique and divine in origin, guided by the Spirit through the Holy Scriptures. This is true of no denomination. While we may reflect cultural mores in some areas, it is distinctly possible for the Lord’s church to stand above human history and remain true to its heavenly mission in spite of past or present human influences. As Paul said, “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. . .” (Rom. 12:2), and this in the midst of the Hellenizing influence of the Greek culture. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Cor. 6:14-18) is a divine imperative, permitting no fellow-ship with darkness of any kind.

Whether the author has a real grasp of the Lord’s church is doubtful. When he includes “Churches of Christ” in the “larger story of Christianity” (p. 5), he calls for us to accept that our “past” includes “Churches of Christ” as a denomination among denominations. He decries judging “most all of Christian history” (particularly Protestantism) as only a “tragic story of decay and corruption” (p. 6). This is strengthened when he accuses N.B. Hardeman (among others) of unfairly dealing with Luther and Calvin and others of the “Christian past” (p. 8) and advises that “we take Christian traditions other than our own with great seriousness” (p. 11).

Non sequitur: We Must Rethink The Bible

Allen asserts that “Churches of Christ must rethink our traditional way of reading the Bible” as a “blueprint” or “a rigid `pattern,’ as a collection of case law,” (p. 20) because this leads to spiritual malnourishment. The “traditional approach,” we are told, “elevated inorganic, impersonal, and mechanistic models of the Bible, the church, and the Christian life” (p. 31). Weighty charges, indeed. Assuming the extent of influence by John Locke and other Scottish Common Sense thinkers on Campbell, brother Allen concluded that it was impossible for Campbell to study the Bible independently, without being a “child of his times” (p. 25). It is surprising to learn (according to the author) that it was Francis Bacon and “Baconianism” that gave rise to the “stringent `pattern’ orthodoxy” (p. 29) of Moses Lard. Did you realize it was human dogmatism and not true biblical exegesis that suggested “command, example and necessary inference” to understand the Bible?

According to this non sequitur, it is impossible to know truth without being influenced by the leading philosophy of the age. Can, then, inspiration be free of contamination? Is the Bible understandable apart from philosophy? One is led to wonder if Gamaliel unduly influenced Paul in writing Scripture or if the school of Hillel colored Jesus’ thinking about divorce. Can any Bible doctrine be understood in its purity? If Locke, Newton, et al, influenced the thinking of the pioneers about their approach to doctrine (commands, examples, inferences; facts, commands, promises), how can we be sure that Mark was not influenced by the Gnostics when he wrote the gospel about Jesus? Or that Luke was not influenced by Plato, Aristotle or others unknown to us?

But wait, there is hope, brother Allen implies. There are mysteries at work in religion that cannot be fathomed by this “analytic-technical” mindset that insists on book, chapter and verse preaching. We are informed that “God works through and beyond our limited, time-bound ways of reading his Word to draw people of searching heart” (pp. 37, 38). I fear that his later inferences are worse than the first.

Does God work “beyond . . . reading his Word to draw people of searching heart”? If so, how? Is the message of the cross not sufficient to “draw” (John 12:32) men to God? Do we hear that part of the “mystery” of the gospel that we are unable to fathom is the work of the Holy Spirit, apart from the Scriptures, drawing men to God? Allen’s earlier work already mentioned, The Worldly Church, lends credence to this view. Supplying what he believed to be some of the answers to the problems among today’s churches, Allen said it must include “a new openness to the power of God’s Spirit in our churches.” But when we try to let the Spirit work, “our tradition may present obstacles” because our doctrine is “shaped more by modem rationalism than biblical revelation” (pp. 74, 75). He proclaimed the answer to include the “indwelling Spirit who enlightens our minds to the things of God . . . . who assures our spirits…” (p. 75). The early church had the “guidance of the Spirit at crucial points in the church’s early history:.. . Pentecost … death of Stephen . . . baptism of the first Gentile … beginning of the first overseas mission…. Today we need this same openness to the Spirit as we face the continuing secularization of the church” (pp. 76, 77). This unfounded conclusion (claiming that miracles from the Holy Spirit in the past necessarily imply their continuance today) would lead him into Pentecostalism if consistently followed.

Non sequitur: Strangeness

Most of us are aware of the mysticism of the Orient. We have avoided the pitfalls of such error, however, because of the emphasis in the Scriptures on knowledge (John 6:44, 45). God addressed a revelation to man (universally, not just of the East) and required of him that he understand it (Eph. 3:4; 5:17; etc.), knowing that it will judge him in the last day (Jn. 12:48). The Gnostics claimed to have access to some “higher” knowledge (1 John 2:4) by which they could live sinful lives and still please God. This produced a “spiritual elitism” that refused to acknowledge or be restrained by the written word. Some refused to accept John’s epistles (3 John 9).

Mysticism claims that there is more to a message than what is stated: objective truth is displaced by intuitive imagination, what is felt is more important than what is stated. This spiritual existentialism requires truth to be filtered through human permission for it to be truth. We must remember John 17:17: “Sanctify them in thy truth: thy word is truth.” It does not need my permission to be so.

C. Leonard Allen has a lot in common with the Gnostics. His faulty premises are shaped, in part, by a mysticism that denigrates the perception and perceptibility of God’s message: what is said is not what is meant. Common rules of communication, therefore, do not apply and “great mysteries” supersede “commands, examples and necessary inferences.” This suggests that there is more to the Bible than meets the eye: western man cannot fathom the inscrutable oriental mind. Campbell’s western rationalism (and thus, ours, as well) does not appreciate the metaphoric interpretation of Judaic thinking. If there is a mystery in all this, it must be that Allen makes such a charge in the light of Paul being a Roman, influenced by Greek (western) culture. Timothy himself was a Greek.

But Campbell, we are told, “drew upon a modem, western ‘social compact’ theory widely held in the political thought of his own day. He thereby lost the strangeness of this prominent biblical metaphor (of the kingdom, tr)” (p. 46). This failure to understand because of “strangeness” extends to the very knowledge of God. “But another kind of strangeness remains: the strange, and strangely wonderful, ways of a transcendent God. It is this strangeness that we must not  that we finally cannotdispel” (p. 48). “But there is another, very different model for understanding reality, one that confronts mystery and strangeness without driving it out. We can represent it simply by inverting our pyramid. Here the lines of understanding do not narrow and converge to a single, fixed point. Rather, they open out ever wider, reaching always beyond our grasp or control. The more we learn the more we see what there is to learn. The more we grasp the more we perceive what we do not yet grasp” (pp. 48, 49). “But the deeper we enter into the mystery the more it beckens [beckons, tr] and allures, dazzles and surprises. Before it we find ourselves alternately befuddled and enlightened, humbled and exhilarated. Just when we have established the boundaries of the possible, God unexpectedly enlarges them” (p. 52). Such nonsense denies an understanding of finished revelation (Jude 3; Eph. 3:4). And it is but a short jump from this untrue premise to the faulty conclusion held by many that truth is mysterious, unknowable. If one insists on the particulars of the Lord’s church, the Lord’s supper, music in worship, or the role of women in the church, we are reminded that we cannot know the truth because of a cultural mindset that prohibits modem man from a restoration of ancient Christianity. To insist on doctrinal purity is to destroy this “wonderful strangeness.” Paul’s answer to such error was to remind that we know the mystery in Christ (Eph. 3:4; Col. 2:2, 8) when we read the Scriptures.

Guardian of Truth XXXVIII: 21, p. 11-12
November 3, 1994

By Harry R. Osborne

Have you been to a funeral lately? None of us enjoys funerals, but the reflection demanded by such occasions is good for us. The Bible speaks of the need to learn the lessons that are taught by facing death’s reality. Notice the words of Solomon:

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth (Eccl. 7:2-4).

A while back, I entered the house of mourning for an especially thought provoking funeral. The body of a young man who had turned 18 just three weeks before lay in the casket. He died as the result of a car accident which also took the lives of three other teenagers enjoying a week off during

Spring break. Hundreds of teenagers from the local high school were present.

The death served as a vivid reminder that the curse of death that has invaded our world as a result of sin may bring tragedy upon all. This random occurrence of accidental death was well described by one Bible writer of old:

I returned and saw under the sun that  The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them (Eccl. 9:11-12).

The death of any person we have known makes us face death as a reality. When we attend a funeral, death is not a theoretical proposition  it is a reality! We are forced to contemplate the fact that we too will die just as the one whose memory we honor at a funeral. The admission of that reality brings with it several lessons.

First, we must see the brevity of life. The Psalmist said, “Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, And my age is as nothing before You; Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor” (Psa. 39:5).

In the New Testament, James refers to the same thing noting, “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (Jas. 4:14). There-fore, our prayer should be that of Psalm 90:12  “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Second, we are impressed with the frailty of life. When we see the body of one so alive a few days ago now lifeless within the casket, this lesson is impossible to ignore. David speaks of life’s uncertainty by noting that “there is but a step between me and death” (1 Sam. 20:3). Solomon declared the same thing saying, “No one has power over the day of death” (Eccl. 8:8).

Third, we are brought to contemplate what lies beyond this life. The Bible answers that point emphatically by stating, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). Whether in youth or in later years, all of us must be prepared to meet God in judgment, “For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil” (Eccl. 12:14).

We have no guarantee on life. We hold no lease for so many years. If that young man could pass from this life unexpectedly in his youth, so you and I may too pass at any time. We must all learn this lesson often forgotten until driven into our hearts by the house of mourning.

Yes, it is good to go into the house of mourning. It is not enjoyable, but it is still good. The good comes from the fact that we are made better by facing the lessons learned by the occasion and changing our life for the better. Let us all seriously reflect upon our lives in view of our certain destiny to face God in judgment.

Guardian of Truth XXXVIII: 21, p. 10
November 3, 1994