Plan now to die with dignity

If you don't have a clear plan for how you are going to face the moment of death, there is a good chance that moment may be determined by someone else's decisions.

As a minister of the Word of God, I have always considered it my calling to help people who are on the threshold of eternity to meet their death with dignity. This is what the Apostle Paul sought – that Christ might be glorified in his body even through death (Phil. 1:20). Every Sunday sermon for me was part of the preparation for death. I hoped that each of my visits to the bedside of a dying person would strengthen his faith, give him hope, saturate his mind with the Bible, and focus his attention on the Gospel and the glorification of Christ.

That's why, when I got to the hospital, I was disappointed to see the TV on right in front of my bed. It was inappropriate and even a little creepy.

One day, one of the most godly women I knew was dying. She was filled with the Spirit and was in a state of prayer all the time. During one of my visits to the hospital in her final days, she begged me to pray for her speedy death and shared terrifying dreams: «half-naked women dancing around my bed,» she said. As I looked around, I wondered if it had something to do with the television that the hospital staff sometimes turned on.

Perhaps that was not the reason, but I am convinced that there is a better way to prepare our souls to «meet our Judge and Maker without fear.» Part of the plan for a worthy death is to have friends who share your vision of how to live and die for the glory of Christ. Most of us will be too exhausted, physically and mentally, in our final days and hours before death to make a step-by-step plan. So it is better to prepare one now.

Regardless of your age, directly or indirectly, let it be known that you want – and need – a Bible-filled, Gospel-centered death. When I reflect on this, the death of John Knox comes to mind.

«Knox's "First Anchor"

It was November 24, 1572. Knox was 57 or 58 years old (the exact year of his birth is unknown). He was dying of bronchial pneumonia.

His wife Margaret, despite caring for five children, always tried to be there. Richard Bannatyne, Knox's loyal secretary and friend, never left his bedside.

Around five o'clock in the evening, John called his wife. He asked her to read the 53rd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah, which he considered the sweetest in the Bible:

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. By the stripes which he bore, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, and we have gone astray; we have each turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:5-6).

She also read to him chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, which John commented on in detail, explaining the connection between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of man.

But finally, he asked his wife to read his favorite «first anchor»: the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. Thirty years earlier, when Knox had converted to the Reformed faith, it was this chapter that had brought him peace. He said that it was in this chapter of Scripture that «I cast my first anchor.» Here he saw the basis for Christ’s election and his obligation to preserve those whom the Father had given him:

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. . . I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me: for they are thine. . . Holy Father, keep them in thine own name, which thou hast given me. . . I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. . . Sanctify them through thy truth: for thy word is truth. (John 17:6, 9, 11, 15, 17)

Margaret read this section of the Gospel, to which Knox replied, «Isn’t that a beautiful section?» John’s death occurred about six hours later.

Thinking he was asleep, his family and friends held an evening prayer after 10:00 p.m. When asked by Dr. Preston if he had heard the singing of psalms and prayers, Knox replied, "I wish you and all men could hear them as I have heard them to-day, and I praise God for that heavenly sound." At about 11 p.m., Robert Campbell, sitting by his bedside, heard Knox sigh, sob, and say, "Now it is all over." At the request of his friend Bannatyne to give a signal to show that he remembered the promises of Christ, Knox raised his hand for the last time and "fell asleep without any pain." John Knox's battle was over.

This war ended with the Word of God. It was a death steeped in the Bible. That was what he had asked for, and that was what his wife and friends had given him.

Ready for heaven

The singing and proclamation of the Word of God is what I hope to hear if my death comes slowly. If you have never enjoyed reading the Word of God and singing the truth of the gospel, consider the words of Knox: "I praise God for this heavenly sound.".

Nothing would be more out of place in this final moment than television. And there is nothing sweeter than the «heavenly sound» of friends singing and reading the Word of God—full of the Gospel, full of Christ, full of hope. Plan for it now.