Ready to Die – Acts 21:8-14

Years after God’s sovereign call of Abraham and that man’s decision to follow the Lord, God gave him a son.

Abraham and Sarah had waited many, many years to have a child.

But when they were old God fulfilled His promise and Isaac was born.

So while some of their former friends were becoming great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents Abraham and Sarah were just beginning their family.

God always keeps His promises, but it is often not according to our human time-tables.

When that son, Isaac, reached his teenage years, the Lord did something absolutely astounding:

He ordered Abraham to take his son to Mount Moriah and to offer him as a blood sacrifice.

Everything about that command defies logic:

God not only had promised Abraham a son, but a nation of children through that son.

The death of Isaac would create a barrier to the fulfillment of that promise.

If Abraham and Sarah had been beyond the age to conceive and give birth before Isaac was born, every year since his birth put them exponentially farther and farther from a second child.

Furthermore, Isaac was not a baby by this time, but a teenager,

and he probably could have kept his 100-year-old father from killing him if he had put up a fight.

Then there is the fact that Jehovah is not a demon-god who relishes human blood on His altars.

He had never asked for this sort of thing before,

and although Abraham didn’t know it at the time, God has only made this request one time since.

This divine order was amazing.

But then, as we have seen already, Abraham obeyed, and God accepted Abraham’s intention and willingness to obey as a kind of offering in itself.

God supplied a substitute for Isaac in the form of a Ram – a picture of the Lamb of God – the Lord Jesus.

Genesis 22:1 makes an unusual and important comment which I’d like to bring to your attention:

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did TEMPT Abraham.

This Hebrew word “nacah” (naw-saw’) is used thirty-six times in the Old Testament.

It means “to test, try, prove – to put to the test.”

It is not the same thing as to tempt to sin.

James 1:13 says – “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”

Although God NEVER tempts people to sin, He DOES put them to the test, as we see with Abraham.

For weeks now, we have been wrestling with the question of God’s purpose for all the prophecies about Paul’s upcoming trouble in Jerusalem.

Some of you think that Paul was being told by God NOT to go up to the city.

You can’t figure out why he so stubbornly continued up that road, and you can’t understand why I think that he should.

Do you suppose that there may be a parallel between these prophesies and Genesis 22?

I do. Paul and Isaac are parallels and Paul’s friends and Abraham are parallels.

Everyone needs to realize that Isaac was just as willing to obey the command of God as his father was.

As I’ve said, he could have prevented this execution if he had chosen to do so.

And Paul could have sent the love offerings of the saints on up to the Jerusalem church through the hands of Luke, Trophemus and the others.

Paul could have taken a ship of Tarsus and sailed west out of Caesarea or Joppa.

But in doing that he might have ended up as Jonah had about 800 years earlier.

This trip to Jerusalem was a test of faith, a test of surrender, a test of obedience.

And it was not only a test of Paul, but also of each of Paul’s friends.

The Lord wanted to hear a hearty and sincere: “The will of the Lord be done.”

Like Isaac, Paul was ready to die, if that is what his Father wanted.

It’s this subject – Ready to Die – that I’d like to pursue this morning.

Why is it important to be ready to die?

The answer really should be obvious:

We need to be ready to die, because we are all already in the process of dying.

Like Missionary Max Nunley yesterday, one hour we are enjoying the company of our children, and then an hour later our hearts have stopped.

It doesn’t matter whether we are nearing 15 or nearing 115, none of us are really very far from death.

It is the conclusion of a process in which we are all already fully involved.

I know some people who cannot bring themselves to face the subject of death – especially their own.

I know people who so hate thoughts of death, that if they were here this morning they might just walk out.

If they did stay, it would be with sweaty palms and irregular heart-beats.

Some would be offended at my preaching this kind of message today.

And in some cases, I fully understand their fear – it’s because they are not ready to die.

But death is a fact of life.

Life needs to be lived in the light of death, or maybe I should say “in the shadow of death.”

History bears out the statement of Hebrews 9:27 – “it is appointed unto men once to die.”

To the best of my knowledge, other than people who are less than 150 years old and alive today, there have been only two people who have not died.

ENOCH and ELIJAH were two servants of God whom the Lord delighted to honour.

“Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

“And it came to pass, as [Elijah and Elisha] went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”

These have been the only two, thus far, to escape death.

Not even the great MOSES escaped, although his death was very special.

And besides these there have been many who died more than once.

There was Lazarus, for example, who died, was raise to life again by Christ, but who died again some months or years later.

All those whom the Lord, Elijah, Elisha and others raised during their ministries, eventually had to pass through death a second time.

Is a resurrected life good enough to have to face the death angel a second time?

Why is it important to be ready to die?

Because in the day-planner of God there is a date next to our name, stating that we have an appointment with death.

I quoted Hebrews 9:27 a moment ago, which says, “it is appointed unto men once to die.”

That is, to some people, the saddest verse in all the Bible, but actually I quoted it out of its context.

Listen to all of Hebrews 9:24-28 – “Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

The promise of death, carries with it a promise of eternal life to those who have an interest in it.

This is what makes a periodic study of death important: it opens the door to the subject of eternal life.

More than once, Paul said that he was ready to die.

“For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:

Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”

What does this kind of preparation do for a person?

First of all, it enables him to do his DUTY.

Paul felt that it was the will of God to go to Jerusalem.

And the will of God implies the duty of man.

I have suggested, several times, some of the reasons for Paul’s determination to go to God’s capital city.

As a city, he loved Jerusalem and had spent several years there in his youth.

It may have made his heart skip a beat to think about returning to that place.

Some of you do your best to avoid driving through Vancouver, B.C., but I love to visit Vancouver.

Then Paul was carrying love offerings from a dozen or more churches in Macedonia, Achaia and Asia to give to the struggling saints in Judah.

Part of the giving of a gift is to see the expression on the recipient’s face when he receives it.

Paul wanted to be there when the bow was untied and the wrapping paper was torn off.

And he wanted to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost to have the possible opportunity to preach Christ to the thousands from around the world who would be there.

It occurred to me, as I was reading the rest of this chapter, that there might have been another reason.

And perhaps this was more important than all the others.

Pastor James will soon be telling Paul that there were thousands of Jewish believers, many of whom had heard rumors that Paul was telling his Jewish converts to give up their Hebrew heritage.

I wonder if Paul had already realized this and that he felt it was important to prove to James and the church that these charges were the twisting of the facts.

Just as it was important to keep the Gentiles from thinking that they had to become Jewish proselytes in order to be blessed by the Messiah,

it was important to Paul to maintain a friendly and healthy relationship with those of his own nation.

But if he had been afraid that he might have been killed once he got to Jerusalem,

and in order to prevent this, he had NOT gone to the city,

he might have propagated a serious and unnecessary split in Bible Christianity.

He had a duty to perform in Jerusalem and his willingness to die was a major part of his ability to fulfill that duty.

And then there is a sense in which we are not really READY TO LIVE until we are READY TO DIE.

If we listen to every doomsdayer and naysayer, we might never leave our bed and our bedroom.

We’d never eat an ice-cream; we’d never eat a peanut; we’d never drink coffee.

The only things that we would ever eat would be dry, sour and green – I’d probably starve to death.

One of the latest things is barbeque: barbeque smoke is a carcinogen.

I believe in eating a well-balanced diet;

That means eating lots of the things that I like and once in a while some of the things that I don’t like.

I will probably be the last person to recommend that people put themselves in danger in order to fully enjoy life.

Risking death is not the same thing as living life.

Smoking marijuana and using methamphetamines is more stupid than driving 120 mph up Highway 41.

These things are not exciting and fulfilling.

Sleeping with harlots is as stupid as playing Russian Roulette with only one empty chamber in the gun.

We’ve all heard about hang-gliding, bungy-jumping, free-fall parachuting, and other dangerous sports.

In addition to these there are thousands of people who enjoy something called BASE-JUMPING.

This is the adrenalin pumping thrill of jumping off the tops of solid objects like mountains and buildings.

Base-jumpers permit themselves to fall hundreds of feet without anything but air to slow their descent,

and then eventually they open one of the modern style parachutes

and hopefully land safely in a field or on a building or street below,

then to enjoy the added thrill of being arrested by parks officials or city police.

To be ready to die in a self-risking stupid stunt is not the same thing as what Paul was doing.

In fact the Bible clearly and distinctly forbids base-jumping.

Matthew 4:5-7 says,

“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

Paul was not TEMPTING the Lord to save him when he went to Jerusalem; he was OBEYING the Lord.

He might not have fulfilled his duty or lived the life that he was meant to live,

if he had not at the same time been ready to die at Jerusalem.

Something else that being prepared to die does, is that it DETACHES us from earthly and temporal things.

“Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

As I’ve said before, the pleading of these people had the ability to break Paul’s heart.

That means that Paul cared about these people and the emotions that they were feeling.

Luke, Timothy, Trophemus, Aristarchus and Secundus, were about as close to an earthly family as Paul had at that time.

It distressed him that he distressed them.

But their lives were not super-glued together; they were not conjoined twins.

If one was taken the others would be left to serve, and to be cared for, by their mutual Lord.

Christians tend to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think.

Even though our loved ones have grown to depend on us,

WE cannot meet their needs better than the Lord can.

They need the Lord and they need to depend upon the Lord more than they need us.

If the Lord said to Paul, “Come up hither,” he knew that his friends would carry on just fine without him.

And notice that he referred once again to those “bonds and afflictions.”

“Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

To be bound at Jerusalem meant the loss of his liberty; his freedom.

This is one of the most important “things” to most thinking Americans.

But Paul was ready to give up his most important “things,” if that was the will of the Lord.

And his ability to do that was tied into his readiness to die.

Paul would not have been the ambassador for Christ that he was,

if he wasn’t ready to rush into the Ephesian theatre to rescue his friends or to preach Christ there.

We wouldn’t have the great sermon that he preached on Mars Hill, if Paul wasn’t ready to up give his life.

Look at him get up from the pool of his own blood outside Lystra and walk right back into that city.

Would Timothy have become a servant of God, if Paul had been raised from death only to run away?

How could Paul and Silas sing and praise God in the depths of the Philippian jail, if they hadn’t been ready to die in that stinking place?

That Paul was ready to die, was a part of what made him the great servant of God that he was.

And like him, WE will never reach our potentials, unless we are as prepared as he was.

And then, obviously, being properly prepared to die, means being prepared to enter eternity.

Being properly prepared to die, means being ready to stand before the Judge of the quick and the dead.

Being READY to die, means that we know that the Lord is pleased with us.

So how does someone make that preparation?

Perhaps the key is found in the last words of verse 13:

“Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem FOR THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS.”

Paul was ready to die, because Jesus Christ was his Lord.

Please turn to II Timothy 1:6-12: – “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

It appears to me that Timothy was a timid young man, who found some aspects of God’s service to be difficult.

Here Paul says, “God hasn’t given you that spirit of fear.

Don’t be ashamed of the gospel; don’t be ashamed of me, even though I’m a prisoner for Christ.

And don’t be afraid to be a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel either.”

And why?

Because the Lord has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace.

Our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, has “abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

Which day is that Paul?

He had committed his soul to God against the day of his death and the judgment which would follow.

In II Timothy, Paul expresses to his young associate, what he was feeling here in Acts 21.

Christ Jesus is the one who holds the keys of death and hell, not Satan.

In Him there is life, and in His will comes death and even resurrection from death.

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: [Christ] has come that [we] might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly.”

The Lord Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

The only way to be ready to die is to personally know the One who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

The only way to be prepared for death is to ALREADY possess the Lord’s eternal life.

The only way to be ready to die is to have ALREADY died with Christ when He gave His life on the cross.

“Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Once again I go back to Hebrews 9:24-28 –

“For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

The theme of the Book of Hebrews is that the rites and ceremonies of the Old Testament are pictures of the full and final sacrifice that Christ made for sinners.

The Tabernacle in the Wilderness and the Temple of Solomon were illustrations of the Heavenly Temple.

All the sacrifices of lambs, goats, doves and cattle, were nothing but pictures of the coming Christ.

“But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

Christ Jesus went quite willingly to the cross in order to give His life and to bear the sins of many.

He gave up His life that people like Paul could have eternal life and not have to worry about death.

Paul was prepared to die, because Christ had given him eternal life.

And now, what about you?

Are you prepared to live, really live, and are you also ready to die?

Are you ready to stand before the Righteous Judge, because you have already knelt before the cross?

Have you repented of your sins, and is your faith and hope for life squarely placed on the Lord Jesus?

You must not delay for a single moment, because the Death Angel is lurking nearby.

You MUST repent before God and put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to save your soul.