Dispelling Fear

Patty: Hi, I’m Patty from Michigan, and I’m a Revive Our Hearts Monthly Partner. One reason I support this ministry is it’s something I can share with my adult daughter as well as her daughter, and we can all grow together to be more like Christ. I’m so thankful that it was actually my daughter who introduced me to Revive Our Hearts ten years ago.

Enjoy today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts, brought to you in part by the Monthly Partner Team.

Dannah Gresh: The believer’s life after death will be incredibly wonderful. Here’s Robert Wolgemuth.

Robert Wolgemuth: Our most amazing fantasy about what heaven would be like, we can’t imagine the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for March 1, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh. Our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, is the wife of our guest today.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Do you know someone who is dying? That’s sort of a trick question because, in a sense, all of us are in the process of dying. But perhaps you just heard about someone with a terminal diagnosis, someone whose days on this side of heaven are drawing to a close.

Not long ago I received some hard news about a couple who are long-time friends of Robert’s and mine. The wife is legally blind, and her husband has been her eyes for many years. It’s been a sweet thing over the years to be sitting in church and see Ron walking in with Jane holding his arm. He leads her and cares for her.

And then in December Ron was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He’s been undergoing chemotherapy, hoping to buy some time before he’s with the Lord.

Maybe you know someone with a similar story. Maybe you’re going through something like that yourself. If so, I hope today’s program will be a huge encouragement to you or whomever you may share it with.

Recently, Dannah Gresh sat down with my sweet husband to talk about the issue of death and dying. It’s a subject of a new book that Robert has written that will be released in the next few days. It’s called Finish Line.

Now, maybe you’re thinking, Well, as far as I know, I’m not anywhere close to the finish line.

Well, as you’ll realize over the next few moments, it’s something that we all need to be thinking about. Let’s listen.

Dannah: Why do people die? Does a person know what’s happening to them as they’re dying? And what happens to their spirits after their bodies here on earth are emptied of them?

If you have questions about death or dying, today’s guest is going to help us find answers. His name is Robert Wolgemuth, and you might know him. (laughter.) He’s kind of really close to the host of Revive Our Hearts.

Good afternoon, Robert. How are you today?

Robert: Hi, Dannah. Wonderful to hear your voice. Wonderful to see your face.

Dannah: I am so excited about this book, Finish Line.” The subtitle, listen to this: “Dispelling fear, finding peace, preparing for the rest of your life.”

I’ve read it. It’s important. It’s a book every Christian needs to read to prepare their hearts for what will be the end of our lives—and we don’t know when that will be. For me, it could be next week, or I may tarry here another twenty, thirty years before the Lord says, “I’m ready to bring you home, Dannah.” But I think it’s a book every Christian needs to read.

What was it that was the catalyst for you to want to write it?

Robert: Well, first of all, thank you for the joy, the privilege of being with you on this conversation.

I wrote a book a couple years ago called, “Gun-lap,” which is about the final lap around the track on a long-distance race. So actually, when the lead runner starts the final lap, the starter fires his pistol again, and they call that the gun lap. Some races they do a bell; it’s called the bell lap.

But Gun Lap was not about death. It was about doing well on your final lap. It was intended to be an encouragement to guys my age. It talked about the unique struggles that men like me face during this season. Our bodies are failing us. Our relationships are changing. And so the Gun Lap book did very well.

I wanted to write the sequel to it because the gun lap is good, but you have to hit the finish line. The end is that long, final straight away when you actually cross the line and break the tape.

So, as you know, I’ve had direct personal experience with death, and so I wanted to tell that story in detail. I wanted to encourage readers as they face their own death. I mean, as you know, death is 100 percent. All of us are going to die. I mean, unless Christ returns, or we can be like Enoch or be swept away on a chariot like Elijah. Though that’d be cool.

Dannah: Yes.

Robert: But most of us are going to die the old-fashioned way, and so that makes the audience for this book everybody. The book is really for people who are my age, or for people who love people who are my age and want to encourage them through the pages of the book and surely through the pages of Scripture.

Dannah: Yes. You said a moment ago you have experience with death. Obviously, not first-hand experience—you’re sitting here with me. You still got a heartbeat, but you do have a memory that really inspired the writing of this book.

Robert: Yes. That’s really true.

Dannah: Tell us about that.

Robert: It’s important for me to say right here at the beginning that I’m not a theologian. I’m not a pastor. I’m not a doctor. I’m a guy. And when I write, I love envisioning one person sitting across a small table back in the corner of a cafe with a cup of coffee between us. So this is a conversation. I want my books to be a conversation where the person feels comfortable with what I have to say. So these are the words of a friend, in this case, a friend who has experienced death very close up.

So, I was married to Bobbie for almost forty-five years. We were married in 1970. We were children. I was twenty-two, and she was twenty.

In February of 2012—thirty months before Bobbie’s death into heaven—we went to a doctor’s office, an appointment with an oncologist. We had never been to an oncologist before because oncologists deal with cancer, and we were all cancer free. There was nothing in our history or even in our friendships, our relationships, our family that had cancer attached to it.

But we went to this clinic in Orlando. We sat down with a highly respected oncologist. Then we walked out of the room with the news that Bobbie had Stage 4 ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is very stealthy—unlike other forms of cancers that women deal with, like breast cancer. This one really sneaks up. It’s a very secret disease.

So this was her first appointment, and she was already Stage 4. I’ll never forget, Dannah, walking into the waiting room. I was with our younger daughter, Julie. The elevator door opened, and in this room are probably forty women. Many of them are sitting there with men, their husbands, and everybody was bald. My wife Bobbie had this amazing mane of hair. I’m looking at those people and saying, “Well, here we go. My life is about to dramatically change.”

So the book opens with the story of Bobbie’s funeral that was in early November 2014. She died in late October. What I say about not just the funeral, but about Bobbie, was that the way she handled this, her own imminent death. She removed from my heart any fear of dying. The way she handled all the treatments that she went through, the horrendous stuff, she never complained.

When I tell people that, they go, “Yeah, right. Come on. Like, never?”

I’m going to tell you, between us and God as our witness, she never complained. She went through a clinical trial that rendered her totally in pain, uncomfortable. It was the middle of summer, and she’s in bed with a knit cap and blankets all over because she’s freezing to death. But she never complained. She showed me and her friends how to do this with grace.

So I wanted to put in writing, what Bobbie did that was amazing, but also to encourage myself as the writer but then the reader that this is something we can do. We can face this with grace. We can face this with confidence. The Lord knows what He’s doing.

In fact, when Bobbie was diagnosed, my daughters and I, the very afternoon we got the news, we decided: this was a surprise to us, but it wasn’t a surprise to God. He knows exactly what He’s doing. We’re not afraid. We’re not angry. We’re treating this as a gift, which, by definition, a gift is something you don’t expect or deserve. Right? So this is a gift.

The last thing we committed to each other was: our goal is to make this experience a witness for Christ, to introduce people who don’t know Jesus to the Savior, and for us to be able to express the gospel to them through this amazing adventure. And the Lord answered that prayer—sweetly.

We didn’t really pray for Bobbie’s healing because, sometimes that feels presumptuous, like we know what God’s will is. I mean, we wanted her well. We didn’t like this. We hated cancer. I still do. But we wanted that to be really up to the Lord. We trusted either way—healing or death—that He would have His way, and He would know what’s best for us as a family.

So, in the process of all these treatments, we didn’t use CaringBridge. Actually, CaringBridge was really beginning to get up and running. It’s an amazing ministry. But I sent out emails to friends and just gave them updates. It wasn’t a lot of medical stuff. It was just what the Lord is teaching us through this process. The response from those people was incredible.

And kind of as a side bar, as you know, one of the recipients of those emails was a client of mine who I helped with her publishing. It was Nancy Leigh DeMoss. And actually, Nancy livestreamed the funeral and emailed me right after and said, “I’d love to broadcast some of this on Revive Our Hearts.” So way, way back, Nancy broadcasted some of Bobbie’s funeral service on Revive Our Hearts. And who would ever have known that a year later I would invite this lady to be my wife?

So, God’s providence, His leading, is almost too overwhelming to describe. It’s not easy always. It’s not painless always. But it’s always good.

 

So here’s this lady, fifty-seven years old, never married. I knew her as her agent. I knew her professionally. But the Lord has been so good. And you and Bob are such close friends, so we’ve shared a lot together. But I know that you know how amazing Nancy is as a gift to me. And the fact that I’ve had an opportunity to share in the ministry of Revive Our Hearts has been an incredible gift to me.

So, anyway, back to Bobbie. She stepped into heaven in late October of ’14. I wanted to tell the story. The subtitle of Finish Line says it. It’s, Dispelling Fear, Finding Peace, Preparing for the End of Your Life.

And so, I’ve been ruminating on this. You know this, Dannah, because you do this every single day. But I couldn’t sleep last night, just thinking through our conversation and wanting to unpack each of those phrases one at a time to encourage the people who are listening right now.

Dannah: Let’s do it. Again, that sub-title is, Dispelling Fear, Finding Peace, Preparing for the End of Your Life.

Robert, how did your experience with death dispel fear?

Robert: Well, I had never been that close to it. In fact, I opened the book with a question, “When was the first time you saw a dead body?” I mean, some people, grown ups, except for funeral parlors where the deceased is all plasticized and perfectly dressed, a lot of people haven’t seen a dead person except in that situation.

So I tell the story of when I was a kid swimming in a lake and a guy drowned. That was my first image of a dead person. But when the dead person is your wife of almost forty-five years—you’ve had children together, you’ve gone through life experiences together, you’ve moved multiple times, etc., etc. When it’s that person, and when it’s diagnosed, and you’re looking toward the potential of death, there’s a tremendous amount of fear about that.

In fact, so we’re talking in 2023, at the beginning of this year, a football player was on the field. He played for the Buffalo Bills, and he tackled a running back. He stood up, turned around, and fell to the ground. Damar Hamlin plays for the Buffalo Bills.

Dannah: I saw it happen.

Robert: And what happened in that moment? It’s so interesting. In 1991, I was watching the Chicago Bears and the Detroit Lions play, and a guy named Chuck Hughes in 1991 dropped dead on the field. He was on his face, no movement. It was like everybody on the field knew he was gone. Well, this was very much this story with Damar Hamlin just a few months ago.

Dannah: Yes. Everyone changed. The whole field changed.

Robert: Yes. Everything. It became a prayer meeting. Right?

Dannah: Yes. The newscasters were praying.

Robert: Yes. That is an amazing thing. His name is Dan Orlovsky. He’s a sportscaster for ESPN. 

It’s a few days after this event and he said, “Everybody’s talking about prayer, and I’m praying for him.” He said, “I think we ought to pray right now.”

Dannah: Yes.

Robert: And, Dannah, I mean, you saw it. It was like a holy moment on ESPN.

Dannah: Yes.

Robert: And why was it? Because somebody almost died. In fact, when he hit the ground, he was dead. His heart had stopped beating.

Dannah: Yes. And the players knew, because they were praying.

Robert: They did.

Dannah: And it was not like a regular prayer, like, “Let’s bend the knee and do the right thing.”

Robert: Right. Exactly.

Dannah: It was intercession on the field.

Robert: Unbelievable. It was. They knew.

And the interesting thing about this, as you know, Nancy’s Daddy died when he was fifty-three years old. He was playing tennis on a Saturday morning. He had just dropped Nancy off at the airport in Philadelphia, and then he went to play tennis and suffered a severe heart attack 

and was dead before he hit the ground.

Well, 30 percent of us will die like that. I mean, we’re talking to each other, we’re out for coffee, going for a walk with our mate, and we just drop dead. The lights go off.

Dannah: Really? 30 percent?

Robert: Yes, and 70 percent will have some kind of exit ramp, some a little shorter, some a little longer. But when you read people’s famous last words, the second scenario where they have some time between the time they know they’re going to die and the fact that they die, they have a chance to say something.

In fact, the book includes some interesting famous last words. Like when W.C. Fields was dying and people walked into his room, he was a well-known agnostic and he’s reading a Bible. They’re, like, “Uh, Mr. Fields, what is that?”

He says, “It’s a Bible.”

They say, “What are you doing?”

He says, “I’m looking for a loophole.” And then he died.

Dannah: (laughter) It doesn’t seem like he found one.

Robert: Exactly.

So when death approaches, the knee-jerk reaction across the board, around the world, is fear. In fact, COVID-19, what was going on around the world? Fear. Why? Fear of what? Fear of dying. People are afraid to die. Now, I know that some things we did to protect ourselves or others were probably overdone. I think statistics and research will confirm that as years go by. But people are afraid to die.

So the book’s goal, mission, is to dispel that fear. In fact, the whole first chapter of the book is called, “Spoiler Alert: Heaven Is Real.” Nancy’s long-time friend, Randy Alcorn, wrote an endorsement for the book. There’s only one endorsement for the book. I thought early on, If I could get Randy to endorse this book, I don’t need anybody else.

Dannah: You don’t need anybody else. That’s the one who wrote Heaven. 

Robert: Exactly.

So I talk about heaven, that it really is a real thing. There’s some wonderful stories about funerals and celebrating the death of people who have gone to be with the Lord.

But here’s a verse. It’s actually from 1 Corinthians 2. As Bobbie got sicker and sicker, I bet she quoted this 200 times. (It was a lot more than that, but I don’t want to be accused of exaggerating.) And here it is:

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. (1 Cor. 2:9)

So, Bobbie was a painter. Our house was filled with portraits, paintings—probably fifty of them. She loved art. So, “Eye has not seen,” so even her wildest dreams as an artist, heaven’s going to be better than that.

“Ear has not heard.” She loved to sing. She had a beautiful voice. So even better than art and music, “neither has it entered into the heart of man . . .” Our most amazing fantasy about what heaven would be like, we can’t imagine the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.

If you and Bob are on a trip and you’re flying somewhere exotic, some place warm, and you’re anticipating this time to get away with your love. It’s incredible. It’s wonderful. It’s indescribable how fun it is to anticipate something wonderful.

Dannah: Yes.

Robert: Well, that’s heaven. So that’s dispelling fear. Once you get a picture of where we are going, those who follow Christ, love Him, have been redeemed by the blood, have something to look forward to. Since that’s true, that should change everything about how we feel about dying.

Dannah: It really should, yes.

You know, I love snorkeling. My husband takes me on many, many snorkeling trips. I want to be under the water. And every time, I just want to see something that amazes me. He likes snorkeling, but he doesn’t love it like me. He takes me because he loves me. But I think, Wow. I need to want to be as excited about going on the trip to heaven as I am those snorkeling trips. Right?

Robert: Yes. That’s a wonderful picture.

So you’re standing in, let’s say, waist-deep water, maybe chest-deep water. You’ve got a mask and a snorkel, right? You’re looking out over the top of the water, and it just looks like water. Right? That’s all you see. But as soon as your mask breaks the surface of the water and you’re looking under . . . that’s what we’re talking about right now.

It’s like, “Wow! There’s a whole world that I couldn’t have imagined! And here it is right in front of me!” That’s a great word picture. I love that, Dannah.

Dannah: Well, you know what? Tomorrow, I wonder if you could come back and whet our appetite for that trip by helping us build a vision of heaven? I’ve been reading your book, and I’ve been looking at all kinds of things, stories, as you say, that give me peace about death and dying and make me excited about heaven.

And one of the things I thought, Robert, as you’re talking about dispelling fear, you mentioned moments ago that your wife made the process easier by not being fearful herself. I would say, based on what I’m reading here in your book, and I hope you’ll indulge me to read a paragraph or two here, but she not only gave you the gift of dispelling your fear by not being fearful, but by loving you.

I think of the Bible verse where we’re told, “Perfect love casts out fear.” Firstly, perfect love comes from Jesus and Jesus alone. God is the source of it. But as it flows through us, we become fearless. We become peace-filled.

 

Is it okay if I just read these last few moments you had with Bobbie?

Robert: Sure.

Dannah:

My daughters, Missy and Julie, were sitting with me next to Bobbie’s rented hospital bed, plunked down in the middle of our living room in October, 2014. Enid, our faithful Hospice nurse was also there. She’d come by the house only fifteen or so minutes earlier.

Enid had taken Bobbie’s blood pressure. It was very low. She then tried to take Bobbie’s pulse with her thumb on the backside of her wrist. At first, Enid told us it was faint. Then she told us there was none.

Incredibly, we knew this because Bobbie had asked her. “You don’t feel a pulse, do you?” Bobbie queried.

“No, Miss Bobbie, I don’t.”

Bobbie asked for the head end of her hospital bed to be lowered so the whole thing would be flat. I was sitting in the chair right next to her. Then she reached out, took me by the shirt with both hands, drew my face within a couple of inches of hers, and said, “I love you so much,” as clearly as she had said it nearly five decades before when we fell in love. She closed her eyes and died.

Robert: (Drawing a deep breath) Well, that’s the way it happened. And Missy and Julie were there, my daughters. They were at the foot of the bed. And they said to Enid, our nurse, “Is she dead?” And Enid put her hand on Bobbie’s chest and said, “Yes, she’s not breathing. She’s gone.”

It was really interesting. We had been on this journey for thirty months, and so it wasn’t a surprise. And we had resolved that this moment’s going to happen of course. But there was no emotion. I mean, that’s the best I can describe it. It was, like, “Okay. We knew this train was coming, and so, it’s here.”

Now, the tears followed. The next day, for example, I walked out to the cemetery, which was very close to my home. There was a huge pile of flowers on the place where the grave was. And there I cried. But in the moment of Bobbie actually stepping into heaven, it was, like, well, it was peace.

So, dispelling fear, finding peace.

Nancy: That’s my precious husband, Robert Wolgemuth, speaking of his first wife, and my friend, Bobbie Wolgemuth, and her transition from this life to the next.

Just last night Robert and I were talking about that moment again, and it was a sweet thing to hear him affirm that Bobbie had no fear of death. And that as a result, Robert has been able to experience great peace as he thinks about his own death—whenever that may be in God’s time.

Robert’s new book is called, Finish Line. It will officially be released next week. No matter what your age or your health condition, I know it will be an encouraging and helpful read for you. Just listen to that subtitle again: Dispelling Fear, Finding Peace, and Preparing for the End of Your Life.” It’s so good.

Facing death can be scary, but in light of God’s promises, it doesn’t have to be.

Finish Line has practical and biblical help on topics such as finances, blessing those you’re leaving behind, end-of-life choices, and heaven.

You can approach your own finish line—however close or far off it may be—with hope, with joy, and with peace.

We’ll be glad to send you a copy of Robert’s book, Finish Line, as our way of saying “thank you” for your gift of any amount to support the outreaches of Revive Our Hearts. Be sure and request it when you make your donation.

To make your gift, visit us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Today, Robert and Dannah talked about dispelling fear as we think about death. Tomorrow they’ll be back to point us toward finding peace and preparing for the end of our lives. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to direct you toward freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.