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How Dick Van Dyke explains his long life · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025, and you've joined us for the Daily Article Podcasts from Dennis and Forum.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm narrator Chris Elkins, giving voice to today's Daily Article, authored by Cultural Apologist Dr. Jim Dennis.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: The legendary actor and comedian, Dick Van Dyke, turns 100 on December 13th.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What explains his longevity?
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: He recently told People Magazine, I've always thought that anger is one of the things that eats up a person's inside and hate, and I never really was able to work up a feeling of hate.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that is one of the chief things that kept me going.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, he knows that the end of my life is so much closer.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what happens then, Ben Dijk says, when you expire, you expire.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have any fear of death for some reason.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't explain that, but I don't.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've had such a wonderfully full and exciting life that I can't complain.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He added, what I left in the way of children's entertainment and children's music, that's my legacy, in quote, as long as children are singing the words or songs, he made famous, he said,
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have long been amazed by the assumption of so many people that their subjective beliefs about the afterlife will unquestionably correspond to what actually happens to them when they die.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember a woman who confidently told me, I don't believe in hell, as if hell must therefore not exist.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: This seems to me, like saying, I don't believe in Australia, and therefore assuming there is no such thing as Australia.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We don't make such claims about any other reality that lies beyond our capacity.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine assuming that a hotel will have a vacancy when we arrive, and therefore choosing not to make a reservation.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or presuming that we will have a job for which we did not apply, or a place on a team for which we did not attempt to qualify.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: or believing that the road we choose will take us home upon no evidence except that we chose it.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, Dick Van Dyke can confidently assert when you expire, you expire, and claim that the most important part of me will always be alive through the children's music he made.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is convinced that his subjective opinion regarding his eternity must be true, even though he has no objective basis for it.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: He is by no means alone in this.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to a new cultural research center survey, 25% of those who do not identify as Christians are certain they will cease to exist in any form or place when they die.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another 20% believe they will quote,
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: While 14% say they will return to Earth as another life form.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Only 3% say they will experience torment and punishment.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: With regard to eternity, the others apparently believe that their unbelief is all they need to believe.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: At this point, we could have an apologetics discussion regarding the logical basis for the Christian faith.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: We could consider compelling rational arguments for God's existence overwhelming evidence for the veracity of Scripture and remarkable historical confirmation for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you die, assuming the Lord Terry's that long,
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: These arguments will no longer be operative for you.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you cease to live, you will obviously have no capacity by which to decide or affect what happens to you next.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: By definition, your life after death will be entirely dependent on a power that transcends death.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: to have personal confidence that Jesus will bring us to life beyond this life, established in John 14, verse 3, we can do what we do with all rational realities.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: We examine the evidence, then we step the on-date into an experience that becomes self-validating.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I had been required to prove to Janet that I would be a good husband before we married, we would never have been married.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, she considered what she knew about me, then she took a step beyond such knowledge into a marital relationship with me.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some might say this, step was a very large leap, and I would not dispute them.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over our 45 years of marriage, I hope that her decision has, at least on my good days, been self-affirming.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do the same with Jesus.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: We examine the evidence for his life, death, resurrection, and divine character.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then we step beyond it into a saving relationship with him by grace through faith, explained in Ephesians 2 verses 8 9.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: When we do, he promises in John 10 verse 28 that we are in his omnipotent hand forever, declaring from John 11 verse 26 that, everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he offers us assurance that is based on biblical truth but becomes intuitively personal as well.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is where Christmas comes in.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I noted yesterday the fact that the omnipotent god of the universe could reduce himself to become a fetus and be born as a baby is among his most staggering miracles.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's my point.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he could live in his body, he can live in yours and mine by his indwelling spirit as noted in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 16.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can become the body of Christ, stated in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 27, as Jesus continues his earthly ministry in and through our lives.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And our experience of the living Lord Jesus in this life assures us that we will experience Him in the next.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the days I walk closely with Jesus, I sense his presence, peace, and joy in such transcendent and transforming ways that the question of my eternity with him never seems to come up.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am already experiencing the eternal life that becomes ours the moment we trust him as Savior and Lord promised in John 3 verse 16.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can say with Paul from Philippians 1, verse 21, for me to live as Christ and to die as gain.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the days I drift from intimacy with Jesus, in those hours and moments when I allow temptation, distraction, or deception to turn my heart from His, my relationship with Him becomes more transactional and less transformational.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I work for Jesus more than I walk with Jesus, and the joy of my eternal life begins to dim.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: What Charles Finney said about the church is true of our hearts as well.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Quote, if the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which will be true for you today?