Familiarity with heaven, as described by the word of God and believed upon in the heart, necessarily produces hope and longing. Heaven is home for the Christian who increasingly sees himself as an exile on earth. 

It behooves every minister of the Gospel to not only warn his congregants that the pale horse and his rider, Death, will one day arrive and carry away every soul but also to help his congregants prepare well for that day. Indeed, being prepared for one’s day of death is by far the better than simply being honest that death will one day come. Puritan pastor Samuel Ward wisely counsels that “it is but our folly to be so shy of this sight [of death], for though it be sad, yet is it of all the sights under the sun the most necessary, the most profitable… To die well and cheerfully, is too busy a work to be well done ex tempore. The foundation of death must be laid in life. He that means and desires to die well, must die daily; he that would end his days well, must spend them well, the one will help the other.”^[1] This is the great work of a faithful minister of God.

The kind of work a pastor must engage in to prepare each and every soul under his watch, getting them ready for the day of death and preparing them to stand firmly in Christ on the day of Judgment, this is work that demands the whole of a man’s life and energy. This is not for those who play at religion. And certainly there’s too much to be said concerning this work to fit into a few articles, so I will limit myself to three avenues by which to point pastors in the right direction.

The first avenue is to make sure that your church receives more of the word than of the world. Faith in Christ is the only means to wade through the waters of death and not sink into its eternal abyss, and so the question becomes: how do men and women approach those waters with a strong faith? The answer is clear – the Word of God. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The Scriptures strengthen faith and thus prepare the saints to die well. But the world does just the opposite. “The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22)

Now this is simple enough and almost so obvious that it needn’t be stated, but sadly this is a truth that is not nearly valued enough. A pastor may give lip-service to the priority of the word as more necessary and more sufficient than the ways of the world, but ask the question – what do my congregants digest more of in any given week – and perhaps the uncomfortable truth comes to light. In any given week it’s more than likely that many members in your church are being catechized more by Instagram, X, ESPN, the News, or Netflix than they are by the word of God. Sure, they bear this responsibility themselves, but so does the pastor! “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (Hebrews 13:17).

So what can a pastor do? He and his fellow elders can visit the members and actually read God’s word with them. And in so doing, ask them about their life and walk with Christ. Ask them if they’re ready to meet Christ. Ask them what fills their time and what they’ve been reading. At the very least, this will set an expectation that the word-filled life is not just for Sunday mornings but necessary throughout the week!

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