The Taste of Death

I have discovered that death leaves a "taste" in me that I don't care for. I was just starting to forget some of that taste when we got the call about Tim last night. One can hear about the death of others that aren't personally known and feel a sort of intellectual sorrow that doesn't really touch the heart. But let it be someone that you know personally, or a close friend or family member, and the flavor seems to overwhelm everything else.

The taste is a mixture of various flavors. One of the flavors of sorrow is that of grief for the eternal destiny of the person lost, particularly if you aren't absolutely sure that they were saved. Tim was a professing Christian, but the fruit of his life was not a testimony of redeeming and sanctifying grace. If one verse of Scripture could sum up Tim's life for me, it would be the one in James that talks about a double-minded man being unstable in all his ways. Tim had a lot of raw talent and potential, but alas, it was all wasted because he never stuck with anything long enough to see it through to completion or to weather the occasional storms of life. He had a habit of running headlong with great enthusiasm down a particular path and burning bridges behind him as he went. This was true of how he dealt with churches and people. He left his wife Marilyn, probably because she didn't appreciate and support him the way he thought he deserved, and he took up with another woman young enough to be his daughter.

Marc commented to me that "at least we can be sure that he was a Christian." Can we? Profession of Christ and confession of Him are two very different things in my mind. When we die, there should not be any doubt in the minds of those who knew and observed us as to where our faith was placed. Tim professed Christ. To my great sorrow, I am not at all confident that he confessed Christ since he was an unrepentant adulterer. When I consider where he likely is at this moment, I weep.

Tim and I had a sort of love-hate relationship. He really was Marc's friend, but I found he could be very enjoyable and entertaining company when he was in a good frame of mind, and it was easy to get caught up in his enthusiams. OTOH, he didn't like me because I tended to put the brakes on more than he liked and he also didn't like it when my opinion of him or his projects didn't coincide with his. He knew that we did not like what he had done to Marilyn or what he was involved in so we saw and heard less and less from him in the past few years.

Tim was a diabetic. I think he had type I diabetes and so insulin was a necessity for him. About 15 years ago, Tim was attending a charismaniac church where he went to a "healing" service. In faith, he decided he had been healed and acted upon that healing by stopping all his insulin. He went into a diabetic coma and almost didn't come out of it. You would think he would have learned, eh? Well he did the precise same thing this time. He attended a healing service, went off his insulin and five days later had a cardiac arrest. They started his heart 4 times altogether but after the last time, there was no brain activity, so they let him go.

Marc spoke with Marilyn, his wife, and he thinks that it is quite possible that Tim knew exactly what he was doing and followed this course knowing what the outcome would be. He always had big dreams, and when he reached the middle to late 50's and none of them were realized, it is quite likely that this was a face-saving way out of the disappointment and humiliation of having wasted most of his life and never making it to where he thought he should have been by now.

The other flavor of sorrow that comes through for me is one of anger. Anger directed at false and blind shepherds who lead blind people into the ditch. These so-called healing services are nothing short of murderous if this is what the effects of them are. I am angry with those who give false comfort to comfortable pew sitters who are on the broad highway to hell -- who sell the truth for popularity in the pulpit and who count mere numbers as evidence of success. When religion is safe to practice, hypocrisy and self-deception grow. Oh that the Lord would cleanse the Church and our hearts! Oh that many would be awakened from their deadly stupor!

I have been grieved by the state of the visible, professing Church for a long time. But when it really hits home when one of the victims of apostacy was a friend.