Why I Hang Out with Old Dead Guys
“…and through his faith, though he died, yet he speaks.” (Hebrews 11:4b)
This season brings a lot of focus and attention on death—skeletons, cemeteries, tombstones and the like. However, the fear associated with this subject is swallowed up in Christ’s victory for those who believe. He has made this terrible enemy just an entryway into His physical presence. We have nothing to fear about the grave because Jesus put death to death.
In fact, death is so powerless that it cannot even kill the memory or words of the Christian. We know this because of the plethora of sound, timeless biblical teaching that still exists and is available to us in abundance. From Christian thinkers known all over the world to those blessed saints close to our own hearts like parents or dear church members that left their marks, God has a way of giving these people a voice we can still hear “from beyond the grave.” But no spookiness here! Only blessings and joy.
Job said, “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives!” (Job 19:23-25a). Because our Redeemer “ever lives to make intercession for His saints,” we are comforted that we shall live. We have life abundant now and life eternal to look forward to. God has raised up saints whose words were written in stone—the authors of the Bible, the historical theologians and preachers who have written on the Bible, poets and hymn writers who have exalted the truths of the Bible in song, the ones who have had their sermons and teachings committed to page, video or audio. We are much benefitted from spending time with some “old dead guys.”
The world thinks its philosophies, histories, and prose are all going to outlast eternity but the truth is Christ is going to outlive every godless thought ever written or spoken. “This life will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
But I want what spirit and hope William Cowper referenced in his classic hymn “There is a Fountain”: “When this poor lisping stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, then in a nobler, sweeter song I’ll sing Thy power to save!”
Are you interested to hang out with some of these ODGs and glean from their work? Here are some trails you can follow:
- Confessions and The City of God by Augustine (c. 398 & 412 AD)
- The Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther (1520)
- The Nicene Creed (325 AD)
- The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1628)
- The Second London Baptist Confession (1689)
- Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis (1952)
- The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1937)
- Jesus Christ and Him Crucified by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1977)
- The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul (1985)
- The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer (1963)
- What Every Christian Ought to Know by Adrian Rogers (1997)
And there is so much more!
SDG!