Blood-Bought Hope

Dannah Gresh: The way we face our trials affects others. Randy Alcorn shares what his grandson said to Randy’s wife as she battled cancer.

Randy Alcorn: “Grams, if you can face this the way you are facing it, it makes me feel like with God’s strength I can face all the problems in my life and all the challenges that seem like they’re big.”

Dannah: We’ll talk about leaving a godly legacy, today on the Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for March 29, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Well, today it’s a joy to have back with us on Revive Our Hearts a man who’s no stranger to this ministry. You’ve heard him talk about giving and Christian stewardship. His name is Randy Alcorn. I hope you’ve read his book, The Treasure Principle. We’ve offered it a number of times here on this program.

He’s written scores of other books. They will all be a blessing to you. He's been a pastor for many years and has just been a great encouragement and assistance to the Body of Christ. Randy Alcorn, thank you for joining us back here on Revive Our Hearts once again today.

Randy: My pleasure to be with you.

Nancy: Randy, we’ve talked about other topics. You speak on many different topics. You’ve been an advocate for the unborn. My sweet husband often prays, “Lord, it’s the babies. Help the babies. Save the babies.” You’ve been a strong advocate for the unborn. You’ve taught us about giving. But you’ve also written quite a few books related to the whole subject of heaven.

In fact, this week through Revive Our Hearts, we’re offering one of my favorites. It’s called Fifty Days of Heaven. It’s a 50-day devotional, short readings, reflections that bring eternity to light. It’s a beautiful gift-book-looking sort of resource, but also very practical insights drawn from some of your other writing on heaven.

You have written on heaven for years, but in the last several years, you have looked at it with a new focus because you walked through a four-year journey of your precious Nanci—that’s N.a.n.c.i—being diagnosed with cancer. Four years of surgeries and treatment. And then in March of 2022, being taken home to heaven.

So I asked if you’d come on today and talk with us for just a couple of days about that journey.

How do you see and think about heaven differently today now that you’ve sent your wife on ahead there, maybe than you did when you were just writing about the subject?

Randy: Right. Well, I had the experience years ago of being with my best friend when he died, of being with my dad when he died, being with a number of other people when they died. But nothing really prepared me for the moment of being with my soulmate when she died, holding her hand, looking at her, seeing her breathe her last breath. I thought it would come pretty soon, but it came even sooner than we thought.

One thing I would say, Nancy, is just I am so grateful that my Nanci and I had talked so often about death, about the present heaven, about the future heaven on the new earth, about all that awaits us in eternity.

Now, I’m struck with . . . First of all, I thank God for the privilege of having been led by His Spirit to do all this writing and speaking on the subject of heaven and the new earth, which made it almost inevitable that Nanci and I would talk about it. She’d read my books, and we’d discuss this and all that.

Somebody asked me just last night, “What difference has it made for you, all the thought that you’ve given to heaven and the resurrection and all that? What difference has it made in your grief?”

And I said, “It has made a profound difference.”

Am I grieving? Of course. But as Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4, “We do not grieve as those who have no hope” (see v. 13).

Our grief is very real, but it’s also fundamentally very different because so many people face grief with no hope of the future. I use the word “hope,” and I talk about “our hope as Christians.” The word “hope” has different meanings.

For a lot of people, hope is just wishful thinking. “I hope someday that I’ll become President of the United States” or something. Well, who would hope that? I don’t. But somebody might, and if they did, the chances of that actually happening are very remote.

But when we talk about hope in the biblical sense, it’s actually a blood-bought promise of Jesus. That’s what we’re talking about—a blood-bought promise. And that blood-bought promise is so central in my thinking that it has informed my grief and guided my grief and assured me of what to me is not just sort of a, “Ehh, I kind of hope that this is true.” But I know that it is true, and the reassurance to my heart every day as I miss Nanci, and I miss the sound of her laughter in the house.

I think that single thing is what I miss more than anything else—her laughter. The joy that she had in her life, even in her four-plus years of cancer. I miss her so much, yet the friendship of Jesus has become more real to me than it has ever been.

Nancy: What you’re illustrating even in this moment is that the hope we have in Christ, the assurance, the sure hope, doesn’t spare us from loss, from suffering, from death.

Probably the first major encounter I had with death was on the weekend of my twenty-first birthday when my dad at the age of fifty-three dropped dead of a heart attack—dead before he hit the ground.

I had just been with him and my family to celebrate my birthday. So you have the suddenness of this astounding, unexpected loss. In your case there were four years of a cancer diagnosis, walking through that—and many others that we’ve walked through—you as a pastor and all of us with friends and family members.

So having that hope in Christ, that assurance of eternal life with Him, of that ultimate heaven and a new earth and redeemed bodies, and all of those great things, doesn’t mean . . . It doesn’t keep us from having to go through the “valley of the shadow of death.”

And I wonder, as you had that hope, your confidence in God’s goodness and God’s sovereignty, things you’ve taught on, you’ve written on beautifully, you’ve pastored, shepherded people to believe these great truths of our faith.

And yet, as you think about that first diagnosis for Nanci that turned into a four-year saga, you didn’t know where it was going. As time went on, you knew that she likely would not be here for long. How do you reconcile the pain, the hardness, the story God is writing for us is not the one we would write if He put the pen in our hands. How do you reconcile that with the things you know about God that you know to be true.

And yet, it’s still really, really hard. You’re going through physical pains, surgeries, chemo, discouragement. Like, we have listeners right now who are walking through this with someone they love dearly. How do they hold fast to what they know about God while walking realistically through a life that doesn’t look like it’s good or well-planned?

Randy: Right. Well, I can tell you that Nanci was so focused on the Lord. Truly. She’d had a strong walk with God for many years. But, wow, did she raise the bar by the grace of God in those four-plus years with cancer.

Her time with the Lord every morning, her time journaling, her time reading the Puritan’s, Valley of Vision, the Puritan’s Book of Prayers, plus others, reading Dane Ortland’s book, Gentle and Lowly, reading, re-reading J.I. Packer’s Knowing God, A.W. Tozer’s The Knowledge of the Holy, several books by Jerry Bridges, John Piper, Desiring God, re-reading it.

I mean, just all of these Christ-centered books, and it was reflected in her journals. Much of her journals is Scripture, written out, followed by quotes from whatever great author was speaking into her life.

It was astounding to see. She mentored me. She discipled me through her approach to meeting the Lord, all the while with us praying every single night (and I think we missed only two nights in that entire time), praying together that God would bring her healing, but always saying, “But Lord, we recognize Your sovereignty and Your plan. We trust You.”

And there were times we felt like He was answering prayers. When we had great test results. “Wow! That’s phenomenal. What an answer to prayer!” And on Caring Bridge people were saying, “What a great answer to prayer!”

Then there were always the people who would say, “We absolutely know God is going to heal Nanci. We claim it. We trust it.” And all that. And we would go, “Thank you for those good sentiments, but God is God.”

There are some very significant people in the Bible who didn’t have God answer prayers, at least not the way they prayed them, one of them being Jesus. “Lord, take away this cup of suffering from me . . . now . . . yes, Your will be done. But here’s My primary prayer: would You just take it away. If You can, take away the suffering.”

God didn’t answer that prayer . . . and aren’t we glad? Now, He did say, “If it be Your will,” that caveat. He was one of the members of the Triune God who knew from eternity past that this would come.

And then there’s the apostle Paul who said, “Three times I prayed that You would remove this thorn in the flesh” that was obviously [wherever it was] painful. It was debilitating. And God made it clear to him, “I’m actually not going to answer that prayer because My strength is made perfect in weakness. My grace is sufficient for you.”

So, people have asked, “How do you feel about God not answering that prayer?”

I said, “You know, I feel fine about it, because He’s God, and I’m not.”

Now, do I wish He would have healed Nanci? Well, part of me does. But, on the other hand, if you said, “If you could bring Nanci back to this world right now, would you do that if you had the power to do it?”

I say, “No.”

I would absolutely not because all healing He does in this world is temporary. But the healing she’s experienced now in His presence is permanent, to be followed by the resurrection and the world to come.

Nancy: And a new body.

Randy: Yes, a new body, absolutely.

So, lots that we were praying was that God would relieve Nanci of her suffering, and He did. And in the last few weeks before she died, our prayers changed.

Then, every night, it was, “Lord, either heal Nanci or take her home soon.” And that’s what He did. He took her home soon.

Nancy: I love that in God’s providence, He didn’t take her home before she had a chance to speak in a really meaningful way into the lives of your children, your two daughters, their husbands, and those five grandsons.

Randy: Yes.

Nancy: Now, my dad didn’t have that chance in such a way, the sudden . . .

Randy: Yes.

Nancy: Although he’d spoken into our lives so many times. It just reminds me, we don’t know when it’s our last day, and we want to make sure we’ve said the things that need to be said while we have the chance.

Randy: Yes.

Nancy: But in the case of your wife, the Lord really put it on your heart and her heart . . . I was following this in Caring Bridge. I was reading the updates, as many people were. Thank you for posting those. It’s just helpful to know and know how to pray, but also it was challenging to my faith, and our faith as we read those.

But you asked for prayer as she was calling this family meeting. Tell us a little bit about how that meeting came about and what it looked like.

Randy: It was so remarkable because my Nanci was never the person who would intrude or impose or take advantage of. And so often, even when we needed somebody to watch our dog because we were going to be gone for a few days, she’d say, “Oh, don’t ask the kids. I know they’d be willing to do it, but their lives are so busy, and they’d have to open and shut the gate all the time,” because that’s how they get their car out.

And I’d say, “Wait. They’re glad to do that.”

But she just never would impose on the kids. She knew that they had busy lives and the grandkids and their sports schedules and the sons-in-law and all that.

But she said to me one Saturday, “You know, Randy, I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer. I think my time here is short, and I want the whole family together. Now, the family had been coming in and out of town and all that, but I want the whole family to be together by my bed, and I want to talk to them.”

I said, “Okay.” So I immediately got on the phone with our daughter in California the next morning. Her husband was going to officially become lead pastor of that church, and so I said, “Is there any way, with everything else you’ve got going on right now, the busyness with the kids’ schedule and school and everything else . . . We’ll pay your way, of course, could you come as early as even tomorrow evening, and then could we spend all day and Monday together as a family?”

Our other kids and grandkids live nearby, so it was much easier for them. So this thing happened. And on Monday morning, less than a day- and a half after Nanci asked, the whole family gathered. Everybody’s schedules set apart for the entire day. Everybody was at our house, having meals together at our house. And that was the plan. And we were going to come in together. The girls got Nanci ready for it and made sure that she was strong enough for it, and could sit up enough.

And by that time her breathing was labored and all of that. And so I said, “Are you ready?” “Yeah.”

And so we all come into the room. We’ve got ten chairs, and there’s Nanci, and she’s with us. Then she speaks into the lives of our grandsons, one by one. And it’s hard for her to talk. And she starts saying, “I just want you kids to know how much I love you, how important it is to me that you walk with God, and how you know that God has been faithful to me. Even in this suffering, I have—your grandfather and I, your father and I—have sensed His presence. He has been with us, but I just want you to know I love Him, and more than anything else, I want you to love Him and walk with Him.”

And then I read from her journals, because she didn’t have the strength to do it. But I said, “Everything I’m saying now is your mom, your grandma speaking. These are her words, and often they’re her words from Scripture that she has written down and words and quotes from others.”

But as I’m reading this, and then I get to where she is saying, “Just understand this entire time it’s not me speaking, it’s her speaking into your lives.”

And so I had selected portions from her journals that she had given me permission to read. And the power of the things she would say, where she would say things like, “My cancer is God’s gift to me because (she says), here’s a passage in the Psalms, ‘All things are Your servant’s.’ So God’s cancer is a servant in my life. And He’s sovereign.”

And these words to the kids, “Lord, I trust You no matter what You do. If You heal me, if You don’t heal me. If You don’t heal me, then You will heal me because there is healing in the presence of God. To depart and be with Christ is better by far, and ultimately, with the promise of the resurrection.”

And I’m telling you, the response of the family, Nancy, was just extraordinary. The kids are hanging on every word she’s saying as she speaks and every word she’s saying as I read from her journals. And the two oldest ones responded saying something very similar, “Grams, I will never forget your words. I will never forget you, and I’ll never forget this day.” And true of all the other kids as well.

Nancy: What a precious, beautiful legacy your Nanci left, not just by her life when she was well, but also by her life when she was sick, and then even on what proved to be her deathbed. Wasn’t it just a week later that she went to be with the Lord?

Randy: Yes, it was one week later exactly that she died. We were together for that morning, and then the rest of the day they would come in one by one and see her. But literally, when she died I looked at my watch and I said, “Exactly one week ago we were all in this room gathered around her as she was speaking to us.”

Nancy: And what an incredible gift, that is. When a man or a woman of God can leave that kind of gift as they’re getting ready to pass into eternity.

You know, as I followed Nanci’s journey over those years, as you posted on Caring Bridge, and as I read some of the excerpts from Nanci’s journals that you included, it was striking to me that this is why the death of the saints is precious in the eyes of the Lord, because through that dying process, her focus was not on herself but on Christ and on what God wanted to do in her life and in others’ lives through this experience.

She wanted to know God better. She wanted to grow spiritually. She wanted to be in the Word. She wanted to be reading literature that would cause her soul to flourish. And it didn’t stop there. She wanted to share what God was doing in her with others around her.

And as I read about what was unfolding in Nanci’s life—and I know that the circumstances surrounding each of our deaths will be different—but to die as a believer, with your heart and your eyes fixed on Christ, and helping to bring others with you . . . Your grandkids, they’re still school aged, right?

Randy: Right.

Nancy: To be pouring into their lives . . . You see examples of this in Scripture, where some of the patriarchs would gather their sons and their grandchildren around them and would speak blessing and God’s truth into their lives.

But it seems like that’s become kind of a thing of the past, and now people are dying in hospitals, and they’re medicated and attached to technology.

Randy: Right.

Nancy: Some of those things are great gifts, but what a sweetness to be able to have the kind of moment that Nanci had with your children and grandchildren. And, of course, that kind of spiritual richness and fullness doesn’t come in a moment when you’re getting ready to die.

Randy: Right.

Nancy: It’s a lifetime that she had spent getting ready for that moment.

Randy: Right.

Nancy: And then leaving that legacy for her children.

As you shared that, Randy, I think of how Robert and I, after we got married just over seven years ago, went through what was a year-long process of working on end-of-life documents—revising our wills and some financial planning issues and other questions that we had to deal with as two people getting married later in life.

But one of the things we did as a part of that, because we don’t know how long the Lord will give us, we don’t know by what means we’ll be taken out of this life, and I just felt it was important . . . I don’t have biological children or grandchildren, but I poured into a lot of lives over the years, and I was prompted to write a document that’s attached to my will.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever said this publicly. I just wanted whoever was left behind, especially if I’m taken suddenly, I wanted to leave words that would speak into their lives of my love for Christ, my gratitude for the gospel, my trust in His goodness and His sovereignty, and my wishes, my prayer, my heart for whoever may be reading this down the road. It’s something that probably won’t ever be revealed publicly until my body is in the ground and others are reading it, but it’s this thinking of: how can I invest in those the Lord has entrusted to my care, those I’ve influenced, children, grandchildren, friends, colleagues? If I’m not able to have those kinds of moments on my deathbed that Nanci did on hers, how can I still speak into the lives of those I love?

Randy: Right.

Nancy: This is something that I think is worth all of us giving thought to.

Randy: Right.

Nancy: And in your case, God gave you and Nanci the oneness of heart and the time to be able to gather your family together.

I listened online not too long ago to the funeral service of a respected Christian leader, a Bible teacher, and he had a similar experience as he was dying where he called his family together—his children, in-laws, grandchildren—and he spoke a word of blessing into the life of each family member gathered in that room.

And at that funeral, one of his daughters stood and shared with this vast audience what those words were for each of the children, each of the grandchildren.

Randy: Yes!

Nancy: So it not only blessed those family members, but it also blessed those who’d loved this man and who had been so influenced by his teaching and his preaching over the years. They were words of blessing and challenge and hope shared with those who were left behind.

So, this has been a very personal journey for you and your Nanci and your Angie and Karina and those sons-in-law, the “Dan’s,” and the five grandsons. Nobody has experienced it in quite the way that you all have. But I’m grateful that you’ve given a glimpse through the Caring Bridge posts over those four years, that has helped. We’re all going to be facing this. Some are facing it right now.

You’ve given hope in the way that you and Nanci have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, that Christ is with us. Christ is with us! And what more could we need or ask for in those moments.

So thank you for speaking that blessing. And we thank your Nanci for those journal entries and for the words that she spoke, reminding us that physical healing is a gift, but it’s not the ultimate gift, and regardless of what God chooses, He is God, and we are not.

Randy: One of the grandsons said to her, “Grams, if you can face this, the way you are facing it, it makes me feel like, with God’s strength, I can face all the problems in my life and all the challenges that seem like they’re big. It makes them seem a lot smaller compared to what you’re going through.”

And it was just such a great word to see this young man who had been a junior in high school, is now a senior, as is another of my grandsons, and another one is a junior in high school, and then the other two a little bit younger. They’re all in high school except for one. He’s still in middle school. But, wow, what a powerful thing to see your grandsons be discipled and mentored by their grandmother who loved Jesus with all her heart.

And I would say this for anyone: hey, keep your family together. Speak into their lives. And, if you live another fifteen years, nobody’s going to go, “Well, that was a waste!” If you live another one year, another one year, but you don’t necessarily have to wait because, as with your dad, there are many times where it’s sudden, and you can’t put it on the calendar now because it’s just too late.

We’re so grateful we had the hospice workers come into our home and Nanci was able to die at home. I had enough help where I wasn’t the only caregiver anymore, and our daughter who lived nearby who’s a nurse would come over often.

But just for Nanci to be home. Our friends could come, and a number of our friends came and said goodbye as well. They didn’t know necessarily this was the last time, but they realized that they had been with her when she was dying, and it was acknowledged.

And I would just say also to people who are infected by the disease of the health and wealth gospel. There are so many people who keep saying they claim this and God’s going to heal and all that, but how many one-hundred-twenty-year old faith healers do you know? At the most, if God does heal us, we’re still going to die unless we’re alive when Christ returns.

And so far, in 2000 years, none of us have been alive when Christ returns. And there will be people who are, but this presumption that we will be among those people . . . Just realize that we’re all going to die unless, and there’s that one exception. There are people alive at the return of Christ, but just expect it, and live like it’s true, and take advantage of your opportunities.

There are so many people who lose their faith in Jesus because He hasn’t answered their prayer for healing. And what I would say is: that faith needed to be lost because it wasn’t a faith in Jesus. It was a faith in prosperity preachers. It was a faith in yourself and in the power of your own prayer, but it was not a faith in God.

So lose that faith, and replace it with a true biblical faith that sees God as sovereign, the One who determines the lengths of our lives, who answers some prayers for healing and doesn’t answer some prayers for healing. But He ultimately is the only One who’s trustworthy—He and His Word. Look to them and turn away from that prosperity theology that is actually from the pit of hell.

Nancy: And the promise we have is that every one of our days, God knows exactly how many . . . For my brother David, a junior in college, twenty-two years old, was killed in a car crash suddenly. Every one of our days, Psalm 139 tells us, was written by God in His Book before one of them even came to be.

So we trust Him that our days are in His hands, our lives are in His hands, our times are in His hands. And when He says, “It’s time. This is your last day,” then we embrace that He is God, and we are not. We live with that hope of what lies ahead.

We want to talk more about that hope tomorrow. I want to ask you some questions about misconceptions about heaven and just have you mentor us a little bit on that subject.

In the meantime, I want to encourage you to get a copy of a beautiful devotional that Randy has written called Fifty Days of Heaven: Reflections That Bring Eternity to Light.

Dannah: That book is our thank-you gift to you for your donation of any amount in support of Revive Our Hearts. You can give when you visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Ask about Randy’s devotional book on heaven when you get in touch. 

Well, as Nancy just mentioned, Randy Alcorn will be back tomorrow to talk more about heaven: what heaven will be like, and some of the misconceptions many people have about it. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to cherish your blood-bought hope as you find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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