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"When I Walk Through The
Valley of Death"
Byron Beck, Lee Harwood, Denny Minner
March 19, 2006
Dennis
Minner, owner of Wise Men Promotions and SIAN Clothing, and Gennifer
Minner lost their baby, Hunter David Minner. He was stillborn and
delivered to the hands of God on February 21 of this year. Dennis
addressed his church, Fellowship General Baptist, in Poplar Bluff,
Missouri. Dennis is a licensed minister through the General
Baptist Association and runs a college ministry, The Deep End, at the
church.
What follows is the actual transcript of the sermon that was given
Sunday morning to all three services:
BYRON BECK (Sr.
Pastor): This morning we are going to do something a little bit
differently if you haven't already figured that out.
We are going to do a little tag-preacher teaching.
(We had contemplated wearing wrestling tights and making it
really exciting, but we figured that maybe that wasn't such a good idea
after all!) (Denny Minner
and Lee Harwood are also on the platform today.)
Most
of you who are here today were alive when this happened, and if you were
not alive, you probably saw the movie that came out a few years ago on
the Apollo 13 tragedy. Do
you remember that? The
movie was about the mission to the moon in 1970, and somewhere between
Planet Earth and the moon, there was an on-board explosion.
At first, they would discover that the lunar landing was
scrubbed, they would not land on the moon, but then it became apparent
that this was a pretty scary thing.
In fact, they may not make it back alive. There was a
tremendous amount of chaos at the Command Center in Houston.
There was a lot of discussion as to what to do.
At one point, one NASA executive or engineer made this statement.
He said, "This could be the worst disaster in the history of
NASA." But, there was another man, a NASA chief, who
followed up that comment with this statement.
He said, "With all due respect, I believe this is going to
be NASA's finest hour." It
is not going to be a terrible disaster.
This is going to be our finest hour. What was
impressive in the movie, which I'm sure reflected at least somewhat what
happened in real life, was that these engineers got down to business. They did not throw up their hands and quit.
Even though it looked like it was going to be impossible to get
them back home, they did not believe that quitting was an option.
"We will figure out a way to get them back."
Almost anything that could go wrong went wrong.
It was not just one hurdle that they had to overcome, but also
several things that afflicted them.
But, I think it ended up being one of NASA's finest hours.
Now,
I believe a lot of us tend to throw in the towel too quickly.
I think that for a lot of us, when something bad happens to us,
we are way too fast to want to give up, or to blame something, or to get
down in the mouth and think that all is lost. A great verse
is found in one of the Apostle Paul's letters in Galatians Chapter 6
Verse 9 that says this: "Let
us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a
harvest if we do not give up." If you give up, it's lost.
Do you understand that? If
you quit it is done. In
this great teaching, this great encouraging verse from the Apostle Paul,
he says, "Do you know what? There
are probably many times in life that the greatest blessings in life,
some of the most unbelievable and unreal blessings, are around a corner.
But if you quit too quickly, you will miss out on the
blessing."
Within
the last month, one of the families in our church went through perhaps
one of the most painful experiences that a husband and a wife can go
through, a man and a woman can go through, when they lost their son.
Little Hunter David was within three to four weeks of being born,
and for some reason, he passed away before he was born.
I have been so impressed with Denny and Gennifer Minner, with how
they have endured through this very difficult experience.
Today
Denny has asked for an opportunity to share from his heart something
with the church.
DENNY MINNER (Dennis Minner):
Originally, I just wanted to send a card and express our thanks,
but then Byron made the offer to address everyone publicly.
An
old chorus says, "They will know we are Christians by our
love." I just cannot thank this church and this church
family enough for what they did for our friends, our family, and for
Gennifer and me. We had meals brought to us.
Cards, e-mails, letters were sent.
People showed up within an hour at the hospital to be with Gen.
We've had people clean our house.
Gennifer and I have separate bathrooms, and someone even cleaned
my shower, and I think that was Cynthia and Mallory, right?
So too bad they are not here.
They probably had to go to a biohazard detox or something
somewhere. I also want to say a special thank you that I
think you will be very proud to hear about, if you haven't
already. Our youth group took up a collection for a couple
of Wednesdays, and they actually collected more than enough to
pay for Hunter's gravestone, and I think that speaks very highly of Lee
and the youth group. It's been absolutely almost overwhelming,
and the prayers have been amazing.
Lee and Byron have been here with me and Gennifer through this
whole ordeal. I also want to make sure that everyone knows how
much Westwood Baptist took care of us.
I want to thank Westwood Baptist so much.
My brother-in-law is a youth pastor there, my whole family
attends that church, and they took us in just as if we were a part of
their church.
But,
I just wanted to give everyone a little heads up on what happened, on
what took place, and the way we are coming to grips with it, and
hopefully to minister to some of you that maybe have fallen away from
the Lord and need to be a little bit closer.
Last summer Gennifer and I experienced a miscarriage about ten to twelve
weeks into her pregnancy, and it was really hard to deal with. We
were really excited a month later when we found out that she was
pregnant again with Hunter. We
were overwhelmed with joy and excitement.
On
February 20, I was in Las Vegas at a national sales meeting with my
company. I talked to Gen
that night, she had gone to her epidural class, and she said Hunter was
kicking. We were laughing about that.
She said, "I just wanted to remind you that I have a
doctor's appointment, my weekly check-up tomorrow morning."
I
said, "Well, you know, if you go in and find out you're dilated,
make sure and call me immediately.
I'll have my phone set on vibrate, and my company is expecting
it, and if anything goes on, they'll fly me out immediately."
On
February 21, I sat there in that meeting, and my phone began to vibrate
in my pocket. I started
grinning, and my buddy kind of looked at me like, "why is he
grinning all weird?" All
the sudden, it started doing it again, and I started getting real
excited.I thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is it!"
I looked at my buddy, and he said, "What?"
I
said, "Gennifer is going into labor."
At that moment, it was the most exciting feeling I had
ever had in my life. I walked out
in the hallway and called Gen.
I was all excited, and before I had a chance to say much of anything,
she said, "You need to come home as soon as you can."
The way she said that affected my whole life forever.
We talked for a few minutes.
About that time, I could hear in the background, her physician,
Dr. Jones walk in. I heard
them talking, and she said, "Do you want to talk to Donnie?"
I
said, "Yeah."
Donnie
just said, "Denny, I'm so sorry, his heart has stopped."
I
just thought, "You know, this can't happen.
This couldn't be true. She's
over thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight weeks pregnant. This
doesn't happen."
At that moment, I had my cell phone, and I just had an
overwhelming amount of rage come over me.
I wanted to throw my cell phone, and I wanted to pick up a chair,
I wanted to pick up anything, I just wanted to start breaking everything
in a fit of rage. It honestly only lasted for an instant,
because I realized that there were non-Christians all around me.
I thought that no matter what I'm going through right now, people
are watching the way I act. It
hasn't helped with the pain, with moments of anger, but I knew I had to
come to grips with it and to allow God to be there and to comfort me.
I
got on the plane, took me almost ten hours, and Donnie and his staff did
everything to hold off Gen delivering Hunter.
My best friend owns a plane, and he actually hired Cliff, who is
sitting there with Gennifer, to fly to St. Louis and pick me up at
Lambert. He flew me into
Poplar Bluff, and my best friend was waiting for me.
He opened the door and said, "Gennifer is at a 10, and you
need to get to the hospital as fast as you can."
I
got in that car with my dad thinking that this should be the most
exciting ride that I've ever had in my life.
Driving through town speeding and running stoplights, this should
be so exciting. But, there
was a sense of chaos and frenzy. I walked in, and Gen had been in
labor for about ten hours or so. I barely had enough time to say, "Gennifer, I love you.
I'm sorry," when Donnie had to walk in and say, "It's
time, we have to do this."
You
know, Lee and I, and a lot of people, tease Gen and call her a sissy.
She's little bitty, and she doesn't handle dirt well, and she
just doesn't seem that tough. My wife is one of the toughest
people I've ever known. I
wanted her to have a C-section when we first talked, and the more I
thought about it, that was me being selfish. I wanted her to have a C-section because I didn't want to
have to deal with it when I got here.
When I realized that, I told her, while we had been
talking on the phone, that she and Dr. Jones could talk and figure out
what to do. When I got there, she had had an epidural, and she decided to
go ahead and give birth to Hunter.
We
began, she did amazing, and when Donnie pulled out Hunter, I wanted
Hunter to be -- as weird as this sounds -- I wanted him to be deformed. I wanted something to be wrong with him. I looked at Donnie and said, "Donnie, what's he look
like?"
He
said, "He's just a perfect little baby."
They took Hunter and wiped him off.
The nurse handed Hunter to Gennifer and me.
He was almost four and a half pounds, nineteen inches long.
He had brown hair, and his hands and his feet and his nose --
everything about him was perfect. The
umbilical cord wasn't around his neck.
They don't know why his heart stopped.
We probably will never know why.
A
lot of those questions came up, and I really had to look into scripture
because the next few days were just kind of a blur, and I didn't know
how I was supposed to be feeling, and what I was supposed to be
thinking, and I wanted to be strong for my wife, but I couldn't.
I went home, I started looking at scripture, and I found
some amazing strength and encouragement.
One of the
verses I looked at was Jeremiah 1:5 and it said, "Before I formed
you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart, I
appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
I
read that verse, and it excited me.
It excited me to know that God knows every single one of us
personally before we ever go into the womb and before we're born.
That meant God knew Hunter, and Jesus knew Hunter.
I
was looking in II Samuel Chapter 12 and found a passage of scripture
where David had a child, the child was sick, and the child lasted seven
days. Because of the sin
that they had in their lives, their son was taken. When you look
at what happened after the maidservant saw that, they came in and told
David, "Your son has passed away."
In Chapter 12 Verse 23, David said, "But now that he is dead
why should I fast? Can I
bring him back again? I
will go to him but he will not return to me."
So
you are thinking, "How could you find encouragement out of
that?" I find
encouragement not because of what many scholars say.
Many scholars have looked at that passage of scripture and said,
"Well, all that means is that David knew that he would also die
some day, and he would have to be in the ground and buried just like his
son." Other scholars have looked at that passage of
scripture and the way David reacted when he said, "Why should I
fast? I'm going to get
up." David, just as
Gennifer and I, know as Christians, we will get to see Hunter.
We will be with him for an eternity. All of you who
have loved ones who have given their heart to Jesus, you too, will be
with them forever.
Many
people said this, and if some of you said this, or sent it in a card,
don't think that Gennifer and I have written your names down and put you
on our dartboard or anything like that.
I don't even remember who you are. Many people have come
up to us and tried to be comforting and said, "It's okay.
It's all part of God's will. It's
all part of God's plan." I want you all to know that that's
the farthest thing from the truth.
When we look in Genesis, God did not plan for any of us to go
through heartache, to know pain, to know suffering, to know death.
None of us in here was ever supposed to know that.
So when people have asked me, "Well, why in the world
did Hunter have to die? Why
did God allow this to happen?"
It was because of sin. It
was not because of the sin of Gennifer or I, but because of Adam and
Eve. Adam and Eve screwed up.
They messed up. They
sinned, and that messed up nature.
We have a sin nature. The
Bible talks about that, and everything in this world became imperfect,
and death came upon earth. So, when my son was supposed to
be born, it was because of that sin nature, and God could have prevented
it. But, if God prevented
us from going through any kind of turmoil and pain, we would never need
Him. We wouldn't need Jesus
if we lived perfect lives, nothing ever happened, and there was no sin.
Bad things are going to happen.
Babies are going to die. Children,
grandparents, parents, people are going to get cancer, and things are
going to happen.
We
had the funeral, we snuck out, and Gennifer and I went to a bookstore
and found this book. It is
called Safe In The Arms Of God:
Truth From Heaven About The Death Of A Child. When I
read this, I cried, and had tears of joy at the same time. A passage in the book says:
"The very moment your child saw Christ,
your child was instantly and summarily made utterly perfect, completely
transformed into the image of Jesus.
Your child has a desire to please God, a heart for worship, and a
praise and service to God. Your
child has a glory about him that cannot fade.
It is a glory that comes from the inside out.
Your child experiences none of what we know as human frailty or
fallenness. The Lord has
lovingly and graciously bestowed on your heart, soul, mind, and flesh
the standard befitting a lofty position.
He has elevated your child to occupy -- he has given your child
the standard of perfection so that he might stand before His throne and
see God face to face. Your
child will never have a selfish desire, never utter a useless word,
never perform an unkind deed, never think a sinful thought.
Your child is completely liberated from any temptation to sin and
is able to do all that is absolutely righteous and holy.
Your child will experience no suffering, no sorrow, no pain.
Your child will never be displeasing to God because your child
lives in heaven where there is no taint of sin whatsoever. Your child will not weep because there will be nothing to
make your child sad. Your
child will have no need to pray, fast, repent, or confess sin because
there will be nothing to confess and nothing to pray for.
Your child will know a life of unimaginable blessing and only
blessing for all eternity."
I don't know, if in heaven, if God tells our loved ones
when we do good things or when good things happen.
But, I have to think that God tells Hunter that he is a minister.
Over
the last couple of weeks, I've had to go into doctor's offices as a
pharmaceutical rep and relive about ten times a day what's happened. A hundred times in the past two weeks, I've had to re-tell
everything. I wasn't
looking forward to it, but looking back, I've been able to share with
people about the sin nature, and about how we need Christ in our lives,
and about how I'm not angry. I'm
not angry with God. I'm not
questioning God. It's made me realize how much more I need Christ
in my life and how much all of you here need Christ in your life.
No matter how good or bad we are, we all need to be closer to
Christ.
LEE HARWOOD (Youth Pastor):
When I lead young people to the Lord, when I am meeting with them
in my office, my car, or wherever the place may be, one of the things
that I try to tell them is to be as real and as transparent as possible.
I am direct with them about the realities of accepting their Lord
as Savior. I ask them,
"Are you ready for the bull's eye?"
At
first, they don't really know what I'm talking about.
What I tell them is that when someone receives the Lord as their
Savior, there is a bull's eye. In
my imagination, there is a bull's eye that is created on your forehead,
and that's the bull's eye that everybody then takes aim at.
Your friends, sometimes your family, aim at that bull's eye. When
we become a Christian, all of a sudden, we're the show for everybody to
watch, and everybody is just trying to see when we are going to mess up.
I tell them one of the responsibilities, one of the realities, of
your making this decision today, is that that's going to take place, and
I want them to know that. I
want them to know that now. I'm
not trying to talk them out of it; I just want them to know that. I
thought about that as Dennis was sharing with me.
We've talked often over the last several weeks. One
of the days we talked happened to be a low day for Dennis, and Dennis
said, "I am angry today."
I should have said something great when he said that. I should have had some great return, some great
response. My mom is here today.
She would have said, "Well, do you need to break some
windows?" That would
have been one of her responses, and actually, she means that!
I've enjoyed that privilege a couple of times.
But,
what we did was we went through the litany of different challenges that
they had had -- losing one baby before, coming back from the Florida
getaway and finding Dennis' dad in terrible pain in the hospital, having
to go back to the same hospital and spend time with him.
Dennis said, "Three
years ago when I started to publicly share that I wanted to answer 'yes'
to a call in the ministry, the more that I have done that, the more
faithful that I have been, the more terrible things have gotten or the
harder things have been."
In
my ability to be somewhat profound I simply said, "Well, you are
right." It took me
back to what I had been telling teenagers all this time -- "When
you make this decision, you are going to have a bull's eye."
But, I think when you take that a step further and you
start to grow up in Christ, you start to say 'yes' to those additional
challenges stretching beyond your comfort zones. You start to respond to
God's call on your life, and it could be just as simple as teaching a
Sunday school class. It could be as simple as shoveling snow on a Sunday morning
so the people can walk in safely. It
could be anything. But, when you take that step to say,
"Yes, Lord, I will serve," all of a sudden that bull's eye
grows. It's multiplied.
What it becomes is the bull's eye that Satan takes aim at.
Whereas you may not have been that much of a threat to Satan
before, you may not have been reaching literally hundreds if not
thousands for Christ, whereas you were just "average Joe
Christian," now you are doing some damage. You are a threat.
I
believe, without a doubt, Satan hates Dennis.
Satan hates your wife, Gennifer.
He hates your family. He
hates everything about you. Byron and I were talking, pow wowing
in one of our huddles this past week, and he shared with me a comment
made by a British evangelist Leonard Ravenhill. Realizing that he
was at direct war with the evil one, and that his ministry was
contradictory to anything that Satan wanted to achieve, he said, "I
hope that my name is written in ten foot letters in hell."
I
know that I can relate to this. I
think that we can all relate to the fact that there have been times when
we have simply said "no" because it was easier.
It was just easier. It
flowed better. It did not
require as much commitment. It
did not require as much risk, obviously as much pain.
What
I have appreciated about this family is that they have endured.
I have talked many times with Dennis and said, "You must,
you must continue on." Of
course, he knows that. They
both know that.
I
have received some comfort in the book of Romans.
Romans Chapter 8
Verse 35: "Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness
or danger or sword? As it
is written for your sake, we face death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all things, we are more than conquerors through Him
who loved us. For I am
convinced that neither death nor life neither angels or nor demons,
neither the present or the future or any powers, neither height or death
or anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I
am comforted to know that for Dennis and Gennifer through all of this,
there was never one ounce, one millimeter of separation.
That doesn't mean that it is not messy.
It is messy. It may
even get messier. But, I am reminded through these verses
that Jesus is in the business of cleaning up messes.
BYRON BECK: We
do indeed live in a messy world where bad things happen to good people.
To expect that it will not be that way is an irrational
expectation. We live in a
sin-stained world. It is a
fallen world. Bad things
will happen to us. The key for us is, "What can I do to put
myself in the best position to be able to go through those kinds of
experiences and navigate those rapids in the best possible way?" The
key is to be prepared in advance of those kinds of experience.
I think what's significant about Denny and Gennifer is the
fact that their walk with Christ was so strong in advance; their
commitment to Christ and their faith was so solid before this happened
that when it happened, it gave them a better chance of successfully
navigating these waters. You can wait until the bad things
happen and then get right with God.
You can do that. But, it is not as easy then.
It is harder then.
So
my challenge to each of us this morning is get right with God now.
Get where you need to be in your relationship with Him now,
today. Start building that
relationship with Him today. When
those bad times come -- and they will come for each one of us, not in
the same way necessarily as what happened to them, but they will come
--, you will put yourself in the best position to deal with those tough
times.
In
closing this morning, we want to play a song that was very meaningful to
Denny and Gennifer in the aftermath of Hunter's death.
I think it is most appropriate for Denny actually to introduce
and set up this song that we will listen to.
DENNY MINNER: The
last thing that Gennifer and I want is for this to appear as if we are
trying to gain more attention, or gain some more free meals or anything
like that, because what we want after today is for you guys to go back
to normal. When you see us,
don't walk up and ask, "How are you guys doing?"
Don't walk on eggshells around us.
You guys go back to normal, and if you want to remember this,
remember it because we are expressing how much we want you to be closer
to Christ, not because of how upset we are.
If
you are a weight lifter, and you have a competition coming up, and
you've not stepped foot in a gym for six months, you can't expect to
lift those weights. The same applies to a Christian.
If we are not prepared to face things when they happen, often we
blame God. Use this as an example to get closer to Christ.
For
you all that know my music tastes, this might have scared you, and you
are thinking, "What in the world is Byron going to let him
play?" If any of you don't know my music tastes, I'm into
hard core, death metal. It's
Christian oriented, but it's extreme metal.
It is just not anything most of you would like.
I
got on the plane that day, and I grabbed my Ipod that Byron had actually
talked me into buying. He
said, "If you don't get this Ipod now, you won't get it after
Hunter is born." So I
got one twice as big as Byron's! So as I sat there on the plane,
I started wheeling through all the thousands of songs I have on the Ipod,
and I came to an album by the band Jars of Clay.
They came out with an album last year called Redemption Songs.
And unlike what I normally listen to, Redemption Songs is old
hymns from the seventeen hundreds, the eighteen hundreds, and the early
nineteen hundreds. Jars of Clay remade them and added their own touch and folk
influence to these songs. I put this song in, and I started
listening to it over and over, and I got home, and I said, "Gen,
you've got to listen to this song. It's 'I Need Thee Every Hour.'"
I
encourage you guys to listen and think about the message behind this
song. I encourage you to
think about that in our time of prayer and to sing along with this song
as the words are going to be displayed.
I
Need Thee Every Hour
I
need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford
I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby
Temptations lose their power
When Thou art nigh
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
I need Thee every hour in joy or pain
Come quickly and abide or life is in vain
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee
Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee
I need Thee every hour, teach me Thy will
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill
I need Thee, oh, I need Thee
Oh I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
I need Thee, I need Thee, I need Thee every hour
Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee
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