The Last Enemy: Comfort the grieving

Posted on July 16, 2021 by danielmeyer

The 2015 Clearnote Pastors Conference, titled The Last Enemy, was held at Clearnote Church in Bloomington, Indiana from February 18-20, 2015. The following is a transcript of session 4, “Comfort the Grieving: Caring for those who have lost loved ones,” preached by Pastor Tim Bayly on February 19, 2015. See also the transcripts of sessions 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7.

The conference materials introduced this session as follows:

Grieving is a difficult and complex process. Funerals and visitations present both obstacles and opportunities. Helping those mourning the loss of a loved one is sensitive work, from the hospital bed to the graveside to the days and months and years that follow. Real faith, skill, and wisdom are demanded of God’s ministers at these most sensitive points in their peoples’ lives.

Song: The Warning

About 13 or 14 years ago my brother David told me that I had to listen to this album of the Boston Camerata, and I think at that time I went ahead and bought a couple of CDs. And I don’t know that you said much more than that; but then I was listening to the CDs–now this is Christian church music in colonial America, and as you listen to it I want you to imagine this being what comes out of Nashville and the CCM industry. And I don’t want you to laugh about it–I want you to think, what would it be like if the CCM industry was doing this kind of music?

The Warning

Ah, guilty sinner, ruined by transgression,
What shall thy doom be, when, arrayed in terror,
God shall command thee, covered with pollution,
Up to the Judgement, Up to the Judgement!

Wilt thou escape from his omniscient notice?
Fly to the caverns, seek anhihilation?
Vain thy presumption, justice still shall triumph,
In thy destruction, In thy destruction!

Stop, thoughtless sinner, stop a while and ponder,
‘Ere death arrest thee, and the Judge in vengeance,
Hurl from His presence, thine affrightened spirit,
Swift to perdition, Swift to perdition!

You know, Doug Wilson is a dear brother, and about 12 years ago David Curell said the reason we love Doug is because he’s bloody.

You know what that means, right? You want to be somebody that has blood on you in the battlefield. You don’t want to be the guy that’s been hiding behind the trees and then jumps out when the victory’s assured. And there’s no question Doug’s in it and Doug’s bloody. And so you listen to music like this, and you think, what was wrong with them, that they felt like they had to scare people as part of their worship? People today just are Christians. We don’t need to talk about damnation and presumption and hell and doom–and that’s why we have the CCM industry. So you begin to listen to CCM, and you think about Doug Wilson being bloody, and you think about what kind of men you love.

Now I don’t know who you love, but I’ll tell you, every single time I see Doug Wilson–and this has been from the very beginning–I tell him, Doug, I love you. It just makes him as uncomfortable as all get out. He’s just hoping I won’t hug him. Honestly. But now he knows I will. And then you think, okay, so you’re in an army–that is what the church is, it’s the army of God–what kind of men do you love? Who do you want to be surrounded by in a church? Well, you want to be surrounded by men that are bloody or are willing to learn, right? Isn’t that who you want to be surrounded by in the church?

Now you know how Doug is always talking about what we need to do is build a culture, and you know he talks about how the Puritans had the culture–the best culture the world’s ever had was the Puritans–if we will build a culture…now how are you going to build a culture that is Christian, that calls men to follow Jesus Christ, without music? When has any culture been built without music? And the one thing I can’t get anybody, anybody to listen to is the music of our musicians here. If anybody’s willing to listen to my brother David and me, they are absolutely unwilling to listen to the music–anything about the music and its like pfft! It just goes absolutely flat. And I want to tell you, music is not an elective when it comes to reformation in the church today. If your people are listening to the kind of tripe, shlock, shmaltz–the Clayderman, you know, they’re listening to that kind of thing, they’re all on their smartphones and they’re listening to that stuff and they’re going to the movies–it’s hopeless, it doesn’t matter what you preach, their hearts are owned by the culture.

And so the band started to do music that wasn’t the perfect homeschooling stuff. And look–Jody, the guy that’s leading us, he was raised to be the perfect homeschooling early music violinist. That’s what he was doing–the Royal Academy of Music over in Manchester–you know, he was completely gay–utterly, completely gay, and the proof of it is he was completely angst-ridden. Completely! I remember him bleeding all over my berber carpet in front of my fireplace one night at our small group, and it was just angst. How long did that angst go on that night? I think it was about 45 minutes, in front of everybody.

And then Jody was willing to be humble and to give up his early music, and to begin to write and to begin to lead amplified instruments. Why? Because Stephen one day said to us, you realize that the rhythm guitar today is the organ of yesterday? And I’d grown up with organs. And all of a sudden I’m thinking, of course! That’s absolutely true. It shakes you, it’s direct, it’s manly–and if somebody wants to have a hissy fit about the fact that you add a bass and it’s like low vibes, you know how Bob Larson talked about that–then all you have to do is realize, that’s the pedals on an organ. If somebody wants to have a hissy fit about a lead solo, all you have to do is talk about a descant. Do any of you know what descant is?

Outline

Song: What a Friend We Have In Jesus

Ok, here we go–you have to learn this, because at the church David and I grew up in we knew this. So you all know What a Friend We Have in Jesus, right? Ok, go ahead and sing.

[What a Friend we have in Jesus, Tim Bayly singing a descant]

And listen, that was beautiful, Sunday evenings when we had hymn sings in our worship service. And that’s what the lead guitar does–it plays a routine over the top of it.

And if you have problems with the band being the thing that’s interesting–you know, people say, well, the band, it’s all about the voices, it’s all about hearing each other–you’ve all heard this–then ask yourself, what happens in between the third and fourth verse when you have a good organist? Any of you know? Between the third and fourth verse what happens is the organist goes bonkers and as you hear it happening, you think to yourself, you know, I’m just going to shut up for a little bit. And the organ tells you to do that. And even if you’ve never seen it, if you’re in a church that has a good organist, all of a sudden you’re just going to go quiet for a bit. And the organ goes waaalooollaaooueeeawaaaaaaah! And you know something different is going on, and you’re so intimidated that you start going unison.

Everybody sings unison and the organ just goes wacko on the last verse. And you can’t sing parts, because the organ is now doing it. Now listen, this is what David and I grew up with–but it’s highbrow, at College Church it’s highbrow, do you see this? And so instead of it enfranchising bloody men, it emasculates them. And this is why 95% of the organists in America are gay! It’s at least 95%. This is true, did you all know this? I make a habit of asking people at tall steeple presbyterian churches whether their organist is gay. And again and again they’ll say, well you know–that’s actually what they say–well, now that you mention it, you know… And I just laugh. Why? The organ is an instrument of unbelievable ostentation and power. Don’t you think if you were a gay man who was incapable of mating with a woman that you would want to play an instrument that had the most masculinity of anything on the face of the earth? Do you all understand this? And so why are we willing to have organs in our church and we think it’s pious, but we’re unwilling to have amplified instruments? Why?

It’s bogus, guys! And the reason I’m talking to you about this is I don’t believe there’s going to be reformation in our churches if we will not force the music to change. I don’t believe it. And what I tell people, and this is what I actually said to Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio–some of you have heard of him–what I actually said to him after the conference he’d gotten done speaking–I said, you know Ken, I think the best interpretive grid to understand music in most reformed churches is that everything about the worship is designed to keep from offending the wives of the elders–the worship never rises any higher than that. And I said consequently it’s very effeminate, because it’s just written to not offend the women. But when has any music that’s designed to not offend women ever spoken to your heart? And this guy runs a studio, and that’s why he’s going right, right.

And David Canfield is probably near the top 3 people with knowledge of classical music in the entire world–I’m sorry David, but would all of us that know David agree with that? He’s the guy that knows–how many Pictures at an Exhibition recordings do you have, just Mussorgsky, how many? Just that piece of classical music, 1500-1600 versions of it. How many records did you sell to the Library of Congress? And listen, he was one of the elders that led the movement to use crass, masculine, simple instrumentation. Do you understand this? Men, we have to recover reality in our music. We cannot aim to not offend women. We have to reconnect with the themes of–what? Well you know CCM will never mention the devil, it will never mention hell, it will never mention judgment. And yet you go back to colonial America when the church was vital, and guess what, they sang about judgment, presumption–they sang about doom.

Now, let me ask you a question. Is it biblical what I’m saying? I mean you know it’s one thing for me to say, we have to use amplified instruments–and actually I don’t care. If you want to go to a cappella, that’s almost as good as amplified instruments, because it’s masculine. So it doesn’t have to be amplified instruments, just go a cappella. But what about worship, what about Scripture? Does Scripture say anything like I’m saying? Now, go on and play the Anglican chant.

Song: By the Waters of Babylon

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept…

Ok, now stop. Now what is this? Psalm 137. What is it about? Do any of you want to sum up this psalm? “By the waters of Babylon…” You should know it. Do you want to sum up this psalm? How are you going to do it? The captivity of Jews, that’s nice and cleaned up for the women. Do you remember how this psalm ends? Ok, let’s keep going. And this is the psalmist, David. Ok, start over again.

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
when we remembered thee, O Sion.
As for our harps, we hanged them up
upon the trees that are therein.
For they that led us away captive, required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness:
Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
How shall we sing the LORD’S song
in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
yea, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Remember the children of Edom, O LORD, in the day of Jerusalem;
how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery;
yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Blessed shall he be that taketh thy children,
and throweth them against the stones.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.

1928 Book of Common Prayer (see for example, here)

We’re the problem

Now, my subject tonight is comforting the dying, and comforting those left behind. Do you find Psalm 137 comforting?

I think it is, and I don’t think I’m any different from you–some of you are shaking your heads no, Nate, you shook your head no. I think you find Psalm 137 comforting. Now why would I say that when you say no I don’t?

What is Psalm 137? Isn’t it a perfectly autobiographical sketch of what it is to be a Christian living in America today? Aren’t we in captivity? Aren’t they taking our children? Aren’t they saying down with her, down with her? Every time your church is called a cult isn’t that what they’re saying? “Down with her, down with her!” Isn’t that when you do discipline and a third of your people leave? Aren’t they saying “Down with her!” And who are they saying “Down!” about–you, or are they saying, “Down!” about the bride of Christ? And so listen, you listen to Psalm 137 and you’re alive as a Christian, I don’t see how you can’t be comforted by it.

Now you say, “Well yeah, but I can’t enter into the things about smashing their babies against the rocks.” And I say, yeah, those imprecatory psalms are things we have to enter into by faith, because the culture we live in has influenced us so much–and I know this is going to sound weird–but we don’t have the faith to sing that and to pray it. And you say, well that’s awful. And I say, yeah, I know. I don’t have the faith. And yet the fact that that is our prayer book–that’s what Psalms is, it’s the Christian’s prayer book–should indicate to us that there’s something defective about our prayer life and the way we relate to our culture. Does that make sense to you? If there’s a part of Psalms that we think shouldn’t be there–and that’s what you always think when you read the imprecatory psalms, right, “It shouldn’t be there,” down with it, down with it, right?–probably the problem is us, right?

Every passage of Scripture that we cannot stand, that we condemn, that we judge, it is always us–we’re the problem, it’s not the text of Scripture. And when you really begin to know yourself you will be able to open the Bible and instantly show the parts of Scripture that you condemn. And then you’ll start being a good preacher. Because you’ll open up the Bible and you’ll say, well I hate that, and I don’t agree with that, and everybody knows that’s wrong–and that will just be the three phrases you read first! That’s how much Scripture is God’s thinking and it’s different than ours.

And listen, the first key to comforting those who mourn is letting ourselves accurately see the world that we live in and not speak of it using lies. And that’s what the book of Psalms is–the book of Psalms is a tutor making us see the world as it actually is, with all the pain, all the pride: “Their eyes are fat, they have no pains, I almost gave in to them but then I came into the house of the Lord and I remembered.” And what does he remember? “Their feet are on a slippery slope,” and they’re headed to hell. And that’s what comforted him and restored his sanity. He’d almost become a brute beast.

And then what about Psalm 2? What a wonderful psalm.

So music is absolutely essential, it’s essential that we realize that especially our men must have their hearts wakened up through music. And I’m telling you, it’s hard work to submit to real leadership in music and to have them force you to be zealous in your pursuit of God in worship, because we’re not used to it–we’re not used to anybody violating our personal space, we’re not used to people telling us that we should sing louder, that we should lift our hands, that this should be a participatory event. But men, I keep telling you, if you read William Law’s A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life–you hear me saying this every year–well, when he was asked by another intellectual to recommend about 20 or 30 books that were just foundational for any person who was going to grow through reading, the great lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, as recorded by James Boswell, said that William Law’s A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life was one of the books he had to read. And in that book you remember William Law talks about men who say they don’t know how to sing. And you remember what he says? He says, you don’t know how to sing? You do too know how to sing. You know how I know you know how to sing? Because I’ve been in the bar with you, and the minute you get a little alcohol under your belt, you don’t even care how you sound, but boy are you singing. But then when you come into the house of the Lord–what? You’re dead?

And so our music in worship needs to not leave men unmoved.

And so what you have to do is you have to think about the incredibly intense music of the Psalms. And then you have to think, that has to be in my home with my children, that has to be in my devotions with my family, that has to be what I pace myself with when I run or when I walk–whatever you do for exercise–and that needs to be in my worship service. And if the women don’t like it they can lump it. Because I will not go for the women of my church. If I’m going to set my standard for the women of my church I will never get the men.

My dad said to me when I went in the ministry, go for the men and the women will follow. And my father was more of a feminist than anybody in his time–that’s a secret you didn’t know–and he still had the sense to say that. So men, I’m just telling you: you have to change the culture of music in the lives of your people. If your people are going to begin to walk by faith and do the kinds of things that are required–that Adam talked about this afternoon–

What are you going to do, you’re going to talk to your relatives about how much morphine they’re taking at the end of life? Oh, that’s going to be fun–whether or not they have a feeding tube? whether they’re going to die of dehydration? Have any of you thought this through, what this could mean with your family? You’re going to have to have songs that you sing in the car on the way to the hospital and on the way home, and they’re going to have to be the kind of songs that make you think about being bloody with other men, that make you think about Doug Wilson. You understand about Paul. You remember how he ends Galatians–one of my favorite sections of Scripture. At the end of Galatians he says–and I can’t say it the way he’d say it, because you’d be scandalized–but basically he says, look, from now on don’t give me any. Because why? I bear on my body the brand marks of Jesus Christ.

That’s masculine language. And you know, feminine women love it.

We have elders, and when they they line up here in the front we don’t try to have women serving communion so we can do like a bait and switch after they become Christians, we can tell them well actually you’re supposed to submit to your husband, I know he’s gay, but–so we just go ahead and have men at the front serving communion. We’re not trying to confuse people. And those men stand there and they’re real men. So you know what real women do when they see those men standing there? Dave Curell, when you’re up here with the other elders, tell them about your wife and mine. They feel safe–and they cry.

Song: O Death

Now, one other. Go ahead and play the last one. Play “O Death”

Ooh death
Whooooah death
Won’t you spare me over ‘til a another year?

What is this that I cant see
With ice cold hands taking hold of me
Well this is death none can excel
I hold the keep or heaven or hell

Ooh death
Whooooah death
Won’t you spare me over ‘til a another year?

Ok. So what kind of music is this? It’s bluegrass. It’s Ralph Stanley, father of bluegrass. I would say this is the most typically American music–they’d argue with me and say it’s jazz, but it’s either jazz or bluegrass, right? Now let me ask you a question: is this music suited to worship? You know, yeah and no. But what about the theme? It’s unbelievable.

Listen guys, maybe our women would take this easier than the band, ok, that’s fine. But the theme is death, and we’re not going to begin to comfort those who grieve until we begin to look at death–to preach about death, to sing about death, to prepare for death. And listen, if you can’t tolerate songs about death, if you can’t listen to them, if you think it’s a cosmic bummer and you’re not into it–you can never help anybody who mourns.

You remember that this morning David Curell was talking about “it’s all about you.” And listen, people that are mourning and need to be comforted, they know when it’s about you, they absolutely know when it’s about you. And how do they know it’s about you? Well, because you’re filled with platitudes, and you’re trite, and you’re glib, and you’re shallow, facile. Now listen. None of you know those words, do you. You don’t know the word “glib,” do you? And you don’t know the word “facile,” do you? Be honest with me, do you know those words? Now do you know why you don’t know those words? It’s because our culture is perfectly defined by the words glib and facile.

A glib man, and a facile man with a facile tongue, is a man who says everything properly and none of it goes deeper than a fingernail scratch. He always says the right thing at the right time, and it never grabs you, because he hasn’t lived it and he doesn’t want to live it, and it’s just something that he knows he’s supposed to do–and so he’s a chaplain, he’s got his dress whites on, and he says, “All things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to His purposes.” Ok, facile means “easy,” and it’s so easy. But what about these songs you’ve been listening to: “O Death”? And what about the early colonial music? And what about Psalm 137? C’mon, it’s biblical.

So what I’m saying is, we need a good dose of reality. We need to say no to the Facebook culture, which is entirely plastic, facile; completely, utterly glib; and nothing but lies. We have to get our young men off of Facebook so that they can live. And music will help you do that. Music will help you re-engage with life.

Illustration: A Dream

And so a number of years ago we were on vacation with the Taylors and Mary Lee and I were staying in this little room at the Good News Club headquarters down in Springfield, Missouri.

So we’re on vacation, we’re down at this Christian ministry and they have rooms like motel rooms, sort of. And I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m crying, because I’ve just had a dream that my father, who’s been operated on in surgery, and that he comes out of the surgery and he’s almost ready to be fine and then he goes bad–and I’m not going to tell you all the story, because there’s parts of it you don’t need to know. And it is the most real dream I have ever had in my life. There is not an ounce of question in my mind that God sent that dream to me because that’s how my father was going to die. And I wake up and I’m sobbing, because I love my father. And my wife wakes up and she says, what’s wrong? And I said, God just told me how Dad’s going to die, and that he’s going to die.

Well, I didn’t want to call up my mother and father in the middle of the night to find out whether he was already dead–it was that clear–so I stayed awake, I was in the bathroom crying until about 7:00, and finally I felt it was late enough that I could call. So I called up and got my mother on the phone, “Hi, Mud”–and immediately I knew that he hadn’t died yet, because she was just like, “Hi, Tim.” And I think it was a year later that our family went to Cape May for vacation. And Dad was going to Mayo for his checkup in like a month–two to four weeks–and I just knew he was going to die. That’s the hospital, now I’m understanding this is what’s going to happen.

And so he goes to Mayo–and Dad has this sort of lonely Clint Eastwood kind of thing, like “I’m going to go up to Mayo by myself.” And they told him he needed to have a valve replacement and a bypass operation. So he tells everybody he’s going to Mayo–and he sends me this thing about what to do with his Social Security if he dies or something, you know, and it’s like you have had a vision, you know where you’re headed, you know–you’re in a chute like the cows, and it’s like clockwork, it’s going.

So he says to our mother, Mud, “I don’t want you up here.” And so we call Mud and we say, go up. So she goes up, and then we go out and pick blackberries and we go up with him and we give him the blackberries, because that’s his favorite food–that’s his final meal, he eats the blackberries. And then the next morning we get up real early and go into his room, and they’re getting ready to take him for surgery, and he’s looking at me, and I’m up against the wall, and he points at the picture, and I look behind me and it’s just a little off-center. So I lift up that side; he says, “No, other side.” So we just spend a minute there straightening the picture and then it’s good; and then they come and take him. And you’ve seen what’s happening, you know what’s going to happen. You know it.

So you’re in the room with like 50 people–it’s Mayo, and everybody’s getting these calls, “Will the family of such-and-such, your loved one is off bypass”–or they’re in the recovery room, the family comes, and–you hear all this and you’re waiting to hear about–and then all of a sudden the announcement, “Can the family of Joe Bayly please come, he’s out of surgery, he’s off the bypass machine”–and it’s all surreal. It’s like, I know this isn’t how this ends, but I’ll go ahead and play the game.

And so they say to us, come over here; we go over here; Mary Lee had just taken Michal somewhere to feed her–Michal was just this little baby–and so we go to this room, and it’s right next to recovery, and we get in the room and the surgeon comes in and he says, “Something terrible has happened.” And of course I know what’s happening. “O death!” It’s death. And he says, we’re working on him.

So what had happened is he’d gone into severe arrhythmia. And the surgeon keeps coming back and forth, “We’re working. We’re working.” It’s right on the other side of the wall, we’re in this little room. Mary Lee and Michal are gone, my mother’s there, and my mother’s just keening. Do you know the word “keen”? It’s beyond moaning, it’s like–only a woman can do it. It’s just this terrible noise. And she’s rocking as she sits. And then the surgeon comes in and he says, I’m sorry, he’s gone.

And at the time there was an anti-drug commercial that showed Michael J. Fox walking down a hallway, and as he walked toward you into the camera, doors kept shutting behind him, and he said, “If you do drugs, the options of your life”–and each step he took, a door slammed shut–“the options of your life are going to be taken away, and away, and away, until”–and then he’s right in your face, in the camera–“until there is no other option left.” Very powerful ad.

And all of a sudden I’m sitting there, my father’s just died, and God warned me, I knew exactly what was going to happen–and I see this hallway in the ad, and I realize that on this side of that hallway is love for God, and on that side of that hallway is hate and bitterness; judgment. And this honestly is the happiest moment of my life right then. Why? (No, I wasn’t thinking about my father at that time, my father was gone.) Because I loved God. There was nothing in me that wanted to go to that side. Nothing! There was no anger, there was no bitterness, there was no judgment, there was nothing that wanted to turn from God. It was like, to whom else shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. Though he slay me, though he damn me, I will serve him! And I know what I am, trust me. He would be completely justified to damn me. And every single one of you. Don’t make any ideas about who you are and what you are to God.

Now I’m telling you all of this for a couple of reasons, and here’s the first reason. Into that room, in the midst of my mother’s keening, came a chaplain. And that chaplain, when they told us that dad died and my mother starts crying out, “Oh God, not another one, not another one!”–it’s the most awful thing, you know?–that man looks at my mother and he says, “You have a right to be angry against God.” No prior conversation with that man: none. We’d never met him before, and he’s a chaplain employed by Mayo. And that’s what that man said. Honestly, can you imagine what I wanted to do to that man? I have never felt as violated in my life as by that man.

And you realize, men, that that’s the way I’m afraid we are at times with people that are suffering. It’s all about us. It might not be that bad, but they know when we’re not willing to suffer with them. They know when we’re going to come out with trite things and not enter into their misery. And that is not Christian love.

Remember what I keep saying about Doug Wilson? He’s bloody. You know we want to know how to minister to people, and how to grieve and how to mourn, but we are unwilling to see the women that can’t meet our eyes because they’ve been molested by their fathers growing up–do you hear me? We are unwilling to notice whether or not there’s a feeding tube being put in. We are unwilling to notice whether that little straw thing that keeps them from being dehydrated is being put on their tongue, because they are dehydrated–at least it keeps their tongue from cracking. Do you know this? Those of you that are ministers, you should know this.

These are the little tells that Adam sees as a doctor. There are little signs that will show you whether or not somebody’s being dehydrated, whether or not they’re dying from starvation. There are little things that indicate whether or not murder is taking place in the hospital room. Are you with me? And so what are we? Are we cultivating awareness of the suffering of our people? It’s hard work. Do people know, if they bring the most awful revelation of their lives to us, whether or not we will cry with them–or will they expect us to just sort of brush them off? It’s like, go be fed, go be filled–

Listen, music: “O death, O death.” “Blessed are they who take your children and smash them against the rocks.”

Illustration: The Grandfather

I once went to confront a grandfather who had raped his daughter. And after working with him awhile it came time to tell the family, because of course the whole family had been corrupted with the most awful sexual sins. They grew up in the most conservative church you could ever imagine. And so finally it gets to the point where the grandfather has to tell his children, and they’re in their fifties. And then there’s some of the grandchildren there.

And so there’s a cataclysmic disaster that’s going to hit this family when the grandfather finally tells them why everything that’s gone on in their family has gone on–and you’re in this room, and this man of course at this point in his life he’s constitutionally incapable of saying anything true. In other words, everything he says takes the edge off it and makes him a victim. Have you ever noticed that about people that are predators? They’re always the victim. It’s unbelievable. And as this man begins to say what he did to his daughter, in front of her siblings and their spouses, the victim’s husband is there, and her husband is a man. You know what that guy did? I watched him as it started to come out of his father-in-law–that man went over and began to rub the shoulders and the head of his father-in-law.

Now why did he do that? Would you know why he did that if you watched it? Any idea? At that moment that man wanted to kill his father-in-law, and the only way he could control himself was to do the opposite, which was to love his father-in-law. Do you understand that? If he just tried to sit there, he might have killed him. And so he went over and he stroked him, he massaged him–and he was shaking.

Now guys, this is the world we live in. If you read Scripture, this is what Scripture is filled with, is accounts of death, of incest, of adultery, of murder–and these are the heroes! And if we’re going to comfort those who mourn, we have to feel what they feel. You remember what it says–it says that we are to comfort the afflicted, we are to comfort those who mourn, how? with the comfort we ourselves–

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

But what if we’re the kind of person that’s so trivial and glib and facile that we just like get drunk or smoke dope or do Facebook? Do you think we’re going to be able to understand that man? Do you think we’re going to be able to be led into that man’s life? Do you think we’re going to be invited to that family gathering? And when that man, right when all the family is assembling, at the last minute, says he’s not going, you’ve pushed him too far–the whole family’s assembled waiting for him to show up and he’s at his house and he’s telling you he’s not going to go–what are you going to do?

You know, it was interesting, a month or two after that happened I was talking to that man on the phone–the predator–and he said you know Tim, do you mind if I share something with you? And I said no, I’d love for you to–because at this point I’m looking for him to do anything to help me, because all the work has been on the other side–and so Jesus said would you give me a drink of water, and I think that’s a hint to us that we should ask other people to help us so that when we help them they’re more willing to take it from us.

He said, well you know Tim, I think that if you would try to say things positively instead of negatively that it would make it a little easier to go down with people. And I just could not fathom that this man had said that to me. Of all the things in the world that I would have expected him to say at that moment–he’s finally at a point where he appreciates the work, and he’s going to tell me something that will help me–what he tells me is, you did it all wrong with me. It would have gone a lot better from the very beginning if you’d been positive with me.

And this is what’s involved when you work with a culture and a generation that’s been raised on pornography. They’ve brought strange women into their homes, and so all the children are victims. Do you understand this? If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. And so if our churches are filled with pornography, our churches are going to be filled with incest. And incest is absolutely awful. Incest, you will think–as sometimes gets said in this church when we deal with situations like this–you’ll think, I just wish we dealt with death, it would have been so much easier. It would have been much less painful if we had been dealing with death.

Does God comfort us as somebody who is not in touch with our suffering? What does it say in Hebrews? Our high priest, tempted in all ways like as we are, yet without sin. He’s sympathetic. Are you sympathetic in your work as an elder and as a deacon and as a pastor? And I mean really sympathetic. There’s absolutely no way for us to love our people without entering into their suffering. And let me tell you, men, that is exceedingly difficult work. Mourning and grieving are hard work that must be done.

What happens if you don’t do the work of mourning and grieving? You become a Facebook person. Honestly, that’s what happens. You become glib–everything you say is facile–and you have absolutely no gravitas: none. And gravitas is not a function of being heavy like I am. Gravitas is a function of men who have suffered, and who will bear the weight of responsibility. People look at you and they know immediately whether you’re willing to bear responsibility. It’s innate–people can just see it. You all know that, right? People know whether you will bear responsibility or whether you won’t. And so men, we have to feel the suffering of our people.

Illustration: No Children

I remember David’s and my sister-in-law [Bette]. we were down there visiting when our brother wasn’t sick yet, and we decided we wanted to watch a movie. So Bette and I went down to a Blockbuster that was only a couple blocks from their house, to rent a movie. And we go in, we’re going up and down the aisles, and I see a movie that I think looks fun. It’s called Three Men and a Baby. And I pull it off the shelf and I say, Bette, what about this.

And instantly Bette’s face is ashen, and she’s crying–and she’s a strong woman. She looks at me and she says, could we please not watch that movie? And I’m like, whoa! Where did this come from? And what? They couldn’t have children. And all of a sudden something I was completely clueless to, all of a sudden it’s completely clear to me, that there’s not a moment of her life that she’s not in terrible grief because she doesn’t have children. And then I learn what all the women in our church that can’t have children are like.

And so I just think to myself, well you know, I think that’s a little bit over the top, and I think I’m going to cultivate an ignorance about that whole aspect of life. No! You embrace it as a pastor, and you learn something that’s so helpful for ministering to people. And you begin to see all over the place, women that are in terrible suffering–more than their husbands, usually–because they can’t have children. And all of a sudden your ears are tuned to your people, and you give them permission to suffer, and you suffer with them–and that’s the privilege of ministry. And then you begin to see all the ways that godly people bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.

Illustration: The Economist

One of my favorites is a couple named [Ted & Sue]. So Ted is this economist, and he runs with the wolves, you know, he knows all the big dogs. A few years ago there was a celebration of the birthday of a famous economist at Yale, a friend of his. And so the wife sent an invitation out to all the famous economists at UC Berkeley, University of Chicago and everything–and about 10 of them came together, and all of them had been assigned paper subjects where they’d submitted them. And all of them came and spent the weekend giving papers to each other and then arguing about it. And that was the celebration of the birthday of this Yale economist.

Ted chose as his subject, “Why God will not reveal Himself to people”. And that’s what he spoke on to this group of pagan economists: why God chooses not to reveal Himself to men. And then there’s a couple of economists that respond.

So Ted and Sue are out visiting his Dad, who was a professor at University of Illinois, agronomy or dairy science or something–soil science–and his dad’s retired, and they go up to Rockford, and on the way back he puts three of his children in their car, and they live in a farmhouse right next to an Amtrak, and so there’s this parallel road that’s like 55 or 60 miles an hour, two lane, and then crossroads. And if you’re on a crossroad, within from here to Dave Curell, that close, is this high-speed track, and so if you turn on or turn off, immediately you’re hit. And this was an unguarded intersection.

And you know what’s coming–on the way back to the farmhouse, his father got hit by an Amtrak train and his wife was in the car along with three of Ted’s children. And his father was killed, his mother was killed, and his second daughter was killed, and the other two children of his were in bad condition and taken to Rockford.

Now think about that. You get home. “Where’s–oh,” and then all of a sudden I’m sure they knew. They get over there and the car is so completely obliterated that the wrecker has no idea what kind of car it was. So the policewoman came to the door of the farmhouse, they had been waiting and wondering–and it’s within vision, you can see the crossing from that farmhouse.

Now. The reason I’m telling you this story is not for them. I’m telling you this story because one year later the Christian school here in town, the class that their daughter had been in, had put together money to buy a little bench to sit under a couple of trees on the school property–a little limestone kind of sculpted bench–and then all the kids in her class had done these little pictures of construction paper, different colors, with drawing on it, and stuff–and it was a blazing hot day. And they were going to have a ceremony where they were going to present the bench to the school on their behalf, and they were supposed to show up, and then then they were all going to give–so I went, and Ted and his wife Sue are there–and they’re not public people; as a matter of fact, Sue is extremely private, she’s Korean. And there they are, this little family, standing there–this little huddle of people. And all the kids from the class, one by one come up to them and hand them their construction paper, and there’s the bench. And watching Ted and Sue, they kept smiling at each child.

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking, how do they bear this? How do they bear it?

Remember David talking about going to conferences with my dad? How do you handle a school telling you that you must come and spend an hour with people reminding you of your daughter, who is dead, and giving you gifts–and you’re just public property. You can’t say no and you have to smile. You understand this? You’re public property. And afterwards I said to Ted and Sue that I was so moved, so proud of them. There was not a hint of diffidence in them. There was just this sort of complete vulnerability. Their grief is your grief, your grief is our grief, we’ll go ahead and help you handle your grief, each one of you little children, as you come up to us. And we’re just here to serve you.

And that’s what we’re supposed to be like as pastors and elders and deacons: we’re not there for ourselves, we’re public property, and we are to enter into the pain of others.

And if you say, “Well, I don’t understand things”–God will give you understanding. You talk about a man that doesn’t understand things? How about Dan George. There’s nothing Dan understands–and then he’s got a pastor, David Abu-Sara, who’s a lummox–wouldn’t you agree? But you’re learning, aren’t you? Both of you. Aren’t you learning. What are you learning? Humility, what else? You’re learning how to enter into your people’s suffering. You’re learning–Dan, I know you think it, but you can’t fix everything. You can beat your head against problems that are spiritual, problems of grief, problems of sin, all you want, but it doesn’t yield like an electrical box does. And you realize that a lot of what you do as an elder is just to feel the suffering of other people, and that there’s no higher calling.

Learn when to speak and when to be silent

You know how your wife will sometimes say to you, would you just shut up and listen to me? Have any of you had your wife say that to you? Why does she say that? Men are natural problem solvers, and man, do you feel like an idiot when somebody is dying–and you’re a pastor, so they’re paying you–and you don’t really have anything to do! And so what do you tend to do? Be glib or blend in, or just motor mouth–you know, tell stories or jokes, ask how the sister is–something. And you know what my dad said he wanted when he was going through the death of my brothers? You remember what my dad said in his book? He said one dude showed up and just sat with him for an hour and didn’t say anything. And guess which visit helped my father? It was that visit. And that’s what he says in the chapter, he cites Job’s friends sitting with him.

Years ago at a general assembly, looking out at the people, it all of a sudden hit me that the evangelical church absolutely hates discernment. The evangelical church thinks it’s spiritual to avoid knowing the difference between good and evil. I know it sounds perverse, but it’s true. But if you’re going to be able to comfort others and to bear their sorrows with them and to mourn with them and thus fulfill the law of Christ, you’re going to have to learn to discriminate between good and evil. You’re going to have to do the hard work. And as the fruit of that hard work, you’ll gain an ability to know when to sit and be quiet.

And there will be times when you should say, “All things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to His purposes.” And you then will have the faith to say those words, knowing that they have already been said 30 times by other men who were completely glib and who were probably texting while they said them; but you’ll have the faith to use the single most excoriated text of Scripture. Everybody tells you don’t ever say that. But that is exactly what you need to say at certain times.

And so, men, we have to do the hard work of seeing the suffering, entering into it, knowing the difference between good and evil, knowing ourselves, and knowing our people.

“Death gives”

And the final thing I’ll say is, there really is nothing in this life that gives as wonderful gifts as death. Death is the gift that never stops giving. The treasures that you get through death are unbelievable in ministry.

Now that sounds deep, like Federal Vision, right? It’s like up is down, white is black, elephants are snow. And death gives! But one of my two or three favorite hymns, and certainly my favorite verse, is the final verse of “O Love that Wilt Not Let Me Go”:

O cross, that liftest up my head
I dare not ask to fly from Thee
I lay in dust life’s glory dead
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be

You see, death gives. Jesus says if any man would save his life he will lose it; but if any man will lose his life for My sake and for the gospel, he will save it. And then He says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul? Let him take up his cross and follow Me. And death is unbelievably productive in the hands of God–preparing for death is unbelievably productive.

Illustration: “I need to prepare to die!”

Two stories and I’m done. David Wegener is a missonary of our church, and he was in Zambia–and this was at the time when the funeral processions from AIDS deaths were just constant on the main road which was adjoining the Theological College of Central Africa–you could stand in the driveway of David’s house and just watch the funeral processions go by on the main highway.

And so I went over to the campus and they were having advisee groups, and the head of the college was a guy named Joses Mfuquay. Godly, wise man. And David Wegener said, why don’t you go to his advisee group–I was visiting–and so I went to his advisee group, and they were dealing with AIDS and how to minister in the context of the decimation of their nation through AIDS.

And so his little advisee group of a couple of women and a man, and of Joseph and me–and the man was a pastor, he was probably 35, 40 years old–and it’s awkward to talk about AIDS, very awkward, because there’s a lot of deceit that surrounds it, superstition, it’s just very awkward–so they’re talking about it, and then the man says to Joe, “Principal Mfuquay, I have a qusetion. In my church we have a woman who is dying of AIDS, and I was in her hospital room and there were a number of family members and friends in the hospital room, and I don’t know how to get people to face AIDS. And I don’t know how to get them to face death, and I was in the room with her, and she said would you come here, and I leaned over the bed, and she said, would you please get everybody out of the room? So I stood up and I asked everybody, all the family members and friends, to get out of the room. And then I went over to her and I said, how can I help you, and she said I need to prepare to die! And she said, my family won’t let me talk about death. Everybody is not allowing me to talk about death, and I need to prepare to die!”

So that’s the first story, are you with me? All Christians.

Illustration: “He came up to me, furious”

So then Nathan’s dying, you heard from David Bayly about our brother Nathan dying. And so for quite a while we prayed, like King David did, that God will heal him. And it’s a part of the pastoral prayers, and we’re praying–and as time goes on, what becomes clear is that God has answered, and that Nathan is going to die, he’s not going to be healed.

So then what do you do as a Christian? You pray that God will help them do the work of preparing for the loss of this father of four children under the age of six or seven and his wife, leaving them behind. And that God will help them prepare for his absence and him to prepare to meet God. And so what you do is you begin to pray that God will help them do the work of dying. Isn’t that a godly prayer?

We had a man in our church and he had been in a charismatic group, and he had been in our church for years, and a couple weeks after I started changing my prayers he came up to me, furious.

Why was he angry? He was angry about my prayers about my brother. Now listen. Do you want to feel violated? You have somebody in your church come up and tell you they’re angry at how you’re praying for your brother who is dying. It just doesn’t feel like sympathy (or empathy, or any of those -pathies). But I’m trying to love him, and I say to him, so what’s the issue? And he said, “You have no faith.” I say, I have what? “If you had faith, you wouldn’t be praying that God would be praying that God would help him do the work of dying.”

And I’m thinking, dude. And I looked at him and I said, say his name was Bob. I said Bob, help me understand this. Do some Christians die? “Well, yeah.” And I said, well if some Christians die, should we be concerned that they do the work of dying well? “Yeah.” I said, should we pray that God will help them do the work of dying well? And he’s still fully on board: “Yeah.”

I said, so how do you know when to pray? At what point may I start praying that my brother will be able to die well, and that God will help him?

It wasn’t long before he left the church, after about 10 or 12 years. And men, we can’t be that guy, and I fear that often we are. I fear that often it’s all about us, our insecurities, our twisted notions of what is proper and what isn’t proper–and think about being a man that’s so oblivious to Tim Bayly that he would say that to me–and yet a lot of times isn’t that how we sound to people in our churches that are suffering? We’re completely clueless to what we’re saying, to how it makes anybody else feel, and it’s just about us–and this man was just so dead set that he would face every obstacle in his life in such a way that he would never have a negative confession. And that’s what it was.

So if we are going to be helpful as pastors and as deacons and as elders, and if our wives are going to be helpful, we absolutely have to enter into people’s suffering. And you will–I like what Adam said at the end of his talk, where he said, “I just fail all the time”–oh it’s the one about I serve–you blasphemed, basically.

And then Adam said “I’m not saying you should say that, but my point is we have to give ourselves to standing in the gap, and we will make mistakes, we will sin–you will say stupid things like that–but we have to love our people.” And that’s the crying need of the church today, is shepherds who love their sheep. We have to love them. And that requires us to forget about ourselves. And if you think you have trouble forgetting about yourself, you don’t know Tim Bayly. So just like Adam, I know how many mistakes you make, because I make many, many more. Ask anybody in this church. Wayne’s been with me from the beginning. Ask my brother–no, don’t ask my brother.

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