On Monday I attended the funeral of fellow Acts 29 pastor Barry Keldie. Barry was a strong leader and planted Providence Church in Frisco, Texas. He tragically died of an accidental overdose of Tylenol PM and left behind his wife Charity, his son Will, age 3, and his daughter Layla, age 1.
As I sat through the funeral, sorrow and hope churned in me, over and over. The thought of Barry’s life and ministry being cut so short fit strangely with songs of hope where we sang: “There is none like you God”, knowing that Barry now knows this in a way that all of us have yet to conceive.
Then, to our surprise, his wife Charity stepped up to the microphone. This would be one of the most profound public speaking moments I have ever witnessed. After sharing some details of Barry’s life and his life goals, Charity took us with her into her grief and her hope, right into the hosptial room. She told us about how she was reading Psalm 116 over Barry’s unconscious body. Then she came to verse 15: “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Charity asked the Lord: “What is precious about this?”
After returning home, she went to her husband’s library and pulled Charles Spurgeon’s commentary on the Psalms off the shelf. She turned to Psalm 116 where she read this:
They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to him. The deathbeds of saints are very precious to the church, she often learns much from them; they are very precious to all believers, who delight to treasure up the last words of the departed; but they are most of all precious to the Lord Jehovah himself, who views the triumphant deaths of his gracious ones with sacred delight. If we have walked before him in the land of the living, we need not fear to die before him when the hour of our departure is at hand.
Charity then assured us of her hope in a God who makes men immortal, including her husband, until he wills to take them home. She took great comfort in the fact that none of this had caught God by surprise, that Barry’s death and life was filled with purpose. Her resolute faith in the sovereignty of God made her strong when we were weak, when it actually should have been the opposite–her weak and us strong for her.
She stood there, broken-hearted but filled with bold faith. Godliness shining out of her soul, chasing away the dark cloud of grief and despair that hovered over us. Charity has already learned much from the death of this saint, her precious husband. May we follow her in this lesson. Resolute faith in a sovereign and gracious God is no abstract doctrine; it is practical in every way, all the way to the grave. Our God finds us precious, not only in redemption but also in death. Let us walk the land of the living without fear knowing that he has “smoothed our pillows, sustains our hearts, and receives our souls.”
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Care for the Keldie family by going here.
