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The Man Who Died in the Pulpit · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Chapel is designed to be a meeting on your part with the King of Kings
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  and the Lord of Lords himself. Over these years there has been the same
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  basic objective that chapel is to be a time of worship, not a lecture,
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  not an entertainment, but a time of meeting the King. Those were
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  some of the closing words from a Man's Final Minutes on Earth. The preacher
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  is the Raymond Edmund. He's sixty seven years old. It's a Friday morning
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  chapel at Wheaton College on September twenty second, nineteen sixty seven, five and
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  a half decades ago. This sermon is titled in the Presence of the King.
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  Edmund preached for about eleven minutes, paused, collapsed and died and entered
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  into the presence of the King of Kings. Stunning event in chapel that morning,
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  along with two thousand other Wheaton students was twenty one year old John Piper,
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  and Pastor John You rarely ever mentioned this event once late in an article
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  that you wrote in nineteen ninety five, but nowhere in a book or a
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  sermon, and never hear on ebj either. So take us back to Wheaton
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  in nineteen sixty seven, Who was v Raymond Edmund? What do you remember
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  about that fateful Friday morning? What impact did that chapel have on your future
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  ministry? And as you listened to the audio recording over fifty five years later,
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  what strikes you The room we were meeting in when Prexy as those who
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  knew him well called him v Raymond Edmund. The room we were meeting in
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  was called Edmund Chapel, named after doctor Edmund in nineteen sixty when it was
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  built, so the building in which he died bore his name already. Wow.
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  It's a large concert like venue, beautifully white and blue with huge chandeliers,
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  holds about twenty four hundred people, with a main floor where the students
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  sat during chapel, and then a balcony behind. Chapel was required of all
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  students in those days, so the main floor was almost always mostly full.
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  I was sitting near the back on the main floor, on the right hand
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  side as you face the platform. I think I was about My row was
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  about three or four from the back. We sat in alphabetical order, so
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  nobody chose who they sat with. So what do I make then? As
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  I listened to these last minutes of doctor Edmund's life, which I did in
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  getting ready for this. What an amazing experience to listen. Frankly, I
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  think you can hear if you listen to the whole thing, I think you
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  can hear Doctor Edmund's voice, in his voice and in the content of his
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  message, that he was displeased with the casual way students were treating Chapel.
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  His entire narrative of his meeting with highly Selassie, the Ethiopian King, with
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  its elaborate protocol of bowing and silence as one approach the earthly King, was
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  designed by doctor Edmund to encourage students to come to Chapel and meet the King
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  of kings in that spirit. That's the whole point of his message. Stop
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  talking as you enter the foyer, he pleaded with them. He pleaded that
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  when they walk into Chapel, they wouldn't talk with each other, but cultivate
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  what he called the discipline of be still and know that I am God.
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  He had written a book of devotions called the Disciplines of Life. I had
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  the book. I can't find it right now, but I remember reading it
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  while I was still at Wheaton. His burden in the book and in the
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  Chapel Message and elsewhere was paradoxical like the Christian life. He knew, on
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  the one hand that the deeper life, the Exchange life, as he called
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  it. He was very influenced by Hudson Taylor by the way. In that
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  regard. He knew that the deeper exchange life Christ for Mine mind for Christ,
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  was a profoundly free and spirit inspired life. Yet on the other hand,
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  this life was marked by rigorous disciplines that flowed from the spirit. And
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  he saw those disciplines being eroded in the nineteen sixties in the church and in
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  the students at Wheaton, and that book and this Chapel Message were his way
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  of earnestly calling students to discipline themselves to be still and know that God is
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  God. And so he lamented the roar of student conversation in chapel. He
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  even asked, with I think only partial humor. That is it louder than
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  the lions at Brookfield Zoo. He said, I didn't hear any I didn't
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  hear any laughter when he said that. Yeah. So we were all sitting
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  there when suddenly he stopped no apparent reason. There were a few seconds of
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  silence. He turned to his left and just collapsed. It was not a
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  gentle collapse, as I recalled. He hit the floor like a log,
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  and the sound was frightening. He didn't crumple. You thought it was quiet
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  before good night. Now it was breath holding quiet, as two thousand students
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  trembled inside. Oh no, what has just happened? Doctor Armadine, the
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  new president, who was sitting right behind him in the main chair behind the
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  pulpit, immediately knelt down over doctor Edmund. Then he stood as medical people
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  were coming to the platform and said, with beautiful, perfect equanimity and the
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  dignity he was known for, let us pray, and he prayed briefly for
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  doctor Edmund and dismissed us in silence. So I went to my classical Greek
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  class with Gerald Hawthorne and Blanchard Hall, and after we prayed, we tried
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  to go on with our lessons. But soon the chapel bell told long series
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  of solemn bells, and we assumed that meant the Chancellor has died, and
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  he dismissed class. And that's basically where my memories stopped. As I listened
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  to those last minutes of the chapel message eleven minutes before he collapsed. Several
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  things struck me. I was actually yesterday as I listened and listened effort.
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  I'd never heard that till you sent it to me. As I was trembling
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  in side, I had this awareness, this man is going to meet Jesus
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  in eleven minutes. It was as though I was there and I knew something
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  he didn't know. You're going to die in eleven minutes ten nine eight seven.
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  You're going to meet the King of the universe face to face in eleven
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  minutes. You will not finish this message, Doctor Edmond. You will not
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  finish anything that is not finished. Now your life will be over in eleven
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  minutes. I actually looked over on my computer screen at the numbers ticking off
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  the seconds, and they felt like heartbeats to me. And then he stopped.
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  Now I'm ten years older than doctor Edmund was when he dies. This
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  was a good rehearsal for me. That's what doesn't for this is a rehearsal.
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  I think the final minutes of doctor Edmund's life and message have been a
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  bit romanticized. It's more realistic to say that in those last minutes, not
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  only did he speak of entering the presence of the King, that's what's been
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  remembered, and rightly so. But he was also dealing with student misbehavior,
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  just real, down to earth in glorious, practical, disappointing behavior. And
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  he talked about speakers who come to chapel and are bad speakers. They tilt
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  like windmills, he said, and say things unhelpful. That's not glorious.
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  That's the way most of us are going to die. This is the way
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  it struck me. That's the way most of us are going to die.
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  We won't be on some mountain top of sinless spiritual fervor. We won't.
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  We'll be dealing with some mundane, frustrating, ordinary issue like students making a
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  ruck us coming into chapel, speakers that are embarrassing to listen to, trying
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  to say something helpful about this frustrating reality. And here's the beautiful thing.
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  In the midst of dealing with ordinary, mundane, frustrating disappointments, Christ will
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  shine through. And he did. He did because the very last words out
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  of Doctor Edmund's mouth were an exhortation not to return evil for evil, or
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  to say it positively to return to treat disappointing chapel speakers better than they deserve,
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  that is courteously. Here's what he said, his last words words of
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  counsel about how to treat unhelpful speakers. He said, our part as Christians
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  is to be courteous. Any indication of disinterest or displeasure on our part would
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  be an unnecessary discourtesy to him. And so I would ask you to desist.
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  And he fell over. So the last word, the very last word,
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  was treat them better than they deserve, just like Stephen. Right,
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  that's the way the Christian life is going to be at the very end.
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  I think it's going to be a mixture of mundane, frustrating, disappointing reality
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  and shafts of light, shafts of light from the word of Christ breaking in
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  and yes, the glory of the King just over the horizon. A moment
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  away. As I listened and counted down, I thought, these could be
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  these could be my last eleven minutes right now, even as we talk,
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  right, I could drop over here at my desk I'm standing, I could
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  fall to my left, fault to my right. So, Piper, here's
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  the here's the admonition. That's landing on me. Piper speak in a way
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  that you would be okay with if a recording of your last minutes were played
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  over and over again on earth and in heaven. So my prayer on listening
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  to this message again after fifty five years, is that when I die,
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  I would be found like doctor Edmund, commending the love of Christ. And
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  while I live, I would be found like doctor Armerdinge, beautifully deserning what
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  love calls for in every unexpected moment. Best John for taking us back to
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  that moment. And those last eleven minutes were recorded and can be found online
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  in the Wheaton College Archive. Just google v Raymond Edmund Final Address v Raymond
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  Edmund Final Address. And speaking of the student years of John Piper, his
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  formative years at Wheaton College. We've talked about that season of his life many
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  times in the past episodes that I collected together in the new APJ book.
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  See the APJ Book on page x V fifteen in the introduction for a digest
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  of those other Wheaton episodes and how his years they are really shaped Pastor John
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  and solidified his life, calling a very critical season of his life and speaking
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  of the end of life, Paul tells us that death is a gift to
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  us. We own it. Death is ours, he says in one Corinthians
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  three twenty two. So what does that mean. I'm your host, Tony
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  Rank. You will ask Pastor John on Thursday. See then