WEBVTT 00:00:01.919 --> 00:00:13.599 I uh after I was talking and we were praying for those who were uh have decided to serve the kids this uh this year, I sat down and my wife corrected me. 00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:18.000 It's guys, it's always a good thing to listen to your wife's correction. 00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:20.239 It's always a good thing. 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.199 The reason I bring it up is I said there were 61 people who have chosen to serve. 00:00:25.280 --> 00:00:26.960 There's actually 71. 00:00:27.359 --> 00:00:37.600 And I just exalt God for the fact that in our little church there are 71 people who are choosing to serve Christ in this particular way. 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:41.920 There's many more who are serving, but this particular way. 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:49.679 So it's worth being corrected when we can only exalt the Lord better than the way we have been doing it. 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:51.520 All right. 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:59.920 Well, today I'd like us to uh to pick up where we left off last week. 00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:05.280 We have begun a series of messages. 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:08.159 There will be seven or eight of them. 00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:15.359 It depends on uh kind of uh what I feel like it takes for us to communicate the things that we need to. 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:18.000 And they're on a topic. 00:01:18.239 --> 00:01:27.519 Normally we just take the Bible and work our way through a book of the Bible, but sometimes it's appropriate to look at a topic that is dealt with throughout Scripture. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:34.000 And the topic that we're looking at is something that God says a great deal about, actually. 00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:39.200 It's life, death, and life after death. 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:52.000 Um there is hardly anything more important for us than to understand what God has to say about life and death and life after death. 00:01:52.319 --> 00:02:01.439 Mankind has always had both a fascination with death and an aversion to death. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:10.400 Every culture in the world, every place you go, there is a fascination, sometimes an unhealthy, morbid fascination. 00:02:11.919 --> 00:02:29.759 Just look at the media, look at movies, look at uh television, uh, look at books, um, a morbid, um, and maybe it's simple just murder mysteries, but if all you do is spend your time reading murder mysteries, you're missing something better by far. 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:41.680 Um that's not inherently wrong, but but the problem is it's as though we don't quite know what to do about death and what to say about death. 00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:45.919 And I understand that out there, outside the walls of the church. 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:55.280 I understand that in a culture that has basically thumbed its nose against God and says, I'm gonna go my way and do my thing. 00:02:55.599 --> 00:03:05.439 They generally have a hard time dealing with the issue of death, knowing what to say about it, knowing what to think about it. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:15.439 Um more puzzling to me is that we often have difficulties dealing with the reality of death. 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:19.120 Not in an abstract way, but in a personal way. 00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:20.639 Like, I die. 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:22.400 You die. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:37.439 Um we talked about this uh last week uh a good bit, but it's it's just uh the fact that God has said a great deal to us about life, death, and life after death. 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:45.919 And what God has said is given to us not to satisfy our curiosity or to tickle our intellect. 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:56.639 What God has said about life, death, and life after death is given that it might transform the way we live and the way we die. 00:03:58.319 --> 00:04:30.720 The reason God has revealed a great deal about this is because it is critically important for us, and his goal, his intent, as I read the scriptures, is that we will learn how to live well in light of the reality of death and to deal in our own thinking and personally with the matter of life and death in a way that puts this life in a much broader context that includes the life to come. 00:04:31.519 --> 00:04:39.600 Life did not begin, your life did not begin the day you were born, and it does not end the day you die. 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:42.480 Yet that's generally the way we think about it. 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:46.879 In the world of Scripture, there's a whole lot more to it than that. 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:52.639 And so it's my goal, whether I'm able to accomplish it or not, I'm not sure. 00:04:52.879 --> 00:05:08.639 But that we will be able to understand this critically important subject in a fuller way, and that it would transform our thinking, it would transform our living, it would transform our dying. 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:12.000 So, a series of messages, won't go over this. 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:14.879 Last time we basically just looked at the elephant in the room. 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:16.879 I think nobody really wants to talk about it. 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:19.680 Today we're talking about matters of life and death. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:27.040 Uh, in our usage of words, when there's something really important, a real urgency to it, you say this is a matter of life and death. 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:32.319 Well, life and death is a matter of life and death, and it's urgent for us that we talk about it. 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:37.120 And then we'll be talking in the coming weeks about a whole number of things. 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:38.639 I won't go over that. 00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:40.399 We saw an overview of it. 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:43.439 But we're just in that process now. 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:48.480 So I want to touch and just remind you briefly about what we said last time. 00:05:48.639 --> 00:05:52.000 We focused on the elephant in the room. 00:05:52.959 --> 00:06:06.160 You know, when you walk into a room and there's something very obvious to everybody, but nobody's talking about it, it's as though there's this 16,000-pound elephant standing in the corner that nobody's talking about, but nobody can ignore, really. 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:20.800 Well, the brevity of life, your life, my life, and the proximity of death, your death, my death, is like an elephant in the room. 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:25.680 And we need to start dealing with it, talking about it. 00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:33.040 Um, I shared with you, gave you an illustration of two kings, the foolishness of one and the wisdom of the other. 00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:42.639 King Louis XIV of France could do anything he wanted as an absolute potentate, potentate, dictator, king, could do what he wanted. 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:46.959 And what he wanted to do was ban the word death from his experience. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:52.000 So he forbade the word death being spoken in his presence. 00:06:52.959 --> 00:06:55.839 That worked for a while, but you know he died. 00:06:56.959 --> 00:07:01.120 It's kind of foolish to pretend that that doesn't exist. 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:11.199 Compare that with Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, three or four hundred years before Christ, could do anything he wanted in his realm. 00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:20.800 And he appointed a servant, a slave, with a task of coming into his presence every day and looking at him. 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:28.480 This was his job, to look at Philip of Macedon and say, Philip, you will die. 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:33.199 Now, who do you suppose was wiser? 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:37.279 Well, when you look at the scriptures, clearly Philip. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.879 The question is, which one are we more like? 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:47.040 We looked at a couple of passages to try to see life from God's perspective. 00:07:47.360 --> 00:08:02.480 Among other things, the the that section in Psalms helps us understand that you will not know how to live well unless you know how to deal properly and understand death. 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:11.360 For the years of our lives are 60, 70, 80, modern medicine maybe 90 or 100, but they fly away. 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:15.680 And he who is wise will take that to heart. 00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:20.560 The brevity of life and the proximity of death. 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:29.759 The uh passage in uh Ecclesiastes, which says, it's better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. 00:08:30.959 --> 00:08:32.480 Modern paraphrase. 00:08:32.720 --> 00:08:39.759 A traditional translation of that is it's better to go to a house of mourning than to a festival. 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:47.919 Why would the writer say it's better to spend time at a funeral than at a party? 00:08:48.240 --> 00:09:02.639 Well, obviously that's an extreme statement, it's making a point, but the reality is the wise person contemplates the matter of death while the fool insists on ignoring it. 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:15.840 And when we go to a funeral, we would rather not see a corpse as it is, we would rather see the work of an undertaker that makes it look as living as possible. 00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.480 That's just that's just human nature. 00:09:21.039 --> 00:09:23.600 All right, uh, let's move then. 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:29.519 I want to ask and try to answer on the basis of scripture two important questions today. 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:30.879 What is death? 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:32.159 How would we define it? 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:33.919 How do we understand it? 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:38.240 And how should we conceive of what happens when we die? 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:43.519 And when I die, uh you will, by the way. 00:09:44.159 --> 00:09:46.960 I tried to be as gentle last week as possible. 00:09:47.039 --> 00:09:49.519 I'm not sure that was real successful. 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:51.919 Um the death rate is 100%. 00:09:53.759 --> 00:10:01.440 And I encouraged us to have the honesty to conjugate the verb to die. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:09.840 I die, you die, he, she, and it dies, we die, y'all die, they die. 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:12.399 Because that is the reality. 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:13.039 Okay. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:17.039 So when I die, dot dot dot. 00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:25.279 So let's just try to, with the time that we have, look at these and look and see some of what uh the scriptures tell us about this. 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:41.200 Um, the whole matter of understanding death and uh trying to get a sense of what in the world death is all about is something that men have done from uh, I suppose, the time of Adam and Eve. 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:56.480 Between the time that Adam died when he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, died spiritually, until the time he died physically was 930 years, according to Genesis chapter 5. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:02.960 He had plenty of time, plenty of time to ponder the reality of death. 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:08.639 And men and women have been doing that ever since, rightly so. 00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:17.120 Um for most people, there is an understandable shrug, like what's death like? 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:18.879 How am I supposed to know? 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:20.559 I've not died. 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:24.000 That's understandable. 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:34.639 Sometimes there's a bit of bravado behind that, a bit of um kind of not honest um sense of security about it. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:48.480 Uh I was reminded of uh a few years ago, you know, the uh one of the great intellectual figures of our day, uh Stephen Hawking, is a cosmologist. 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:50.879 Not a cosmetologist, ladies. 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:55.679 He doesn't deal with makeup, but a cosmologist. 00:11:56.080 --> 00:12:04.159 Uh cosmology is an understanding of the nature of reality and of existence and of how the world works. 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:19.919 And a man very far away from the revelation of scripture with a great deal of intellectual acumen, uh, at one point with great humility wrote a book that was entitled A Brief History of Time. 00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:25.600 Can you imagine having the audacity of writing a book, The Brief History of Time? 00:12:25.919 --> 00:12:37.600 Well, he wrote another book a few years ago that was called The Grand Design, in which he was dealing with design in nature and in the world. 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:47.519 Christians who were advocating an intelligent design theory rushed to read his books. 00:12:47.679 --> 00:13:03.519 In fact, his books within three days of them being published in America and internationally, his book, The Grand Design, became a runaway worldwide bestseller within three days. 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:14.240 And many Christians went looking for confirmation of their understanding of intelligent design, and they were very disappointed if they actually read the book. 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:35.360 Because when asked about the life after death, in an interview Hawkins gave at the time this book came out, he came to the conclusion that it was unnecessary to deal with God to understand the origin of life or the design of the universe. 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:42.320 And when probed by someone who was interviewing him, what should we understand about life after death? 00:13:42.480 --> 00:13:45.039 Is there consciousness after death? 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:48.799 Here is the response that he made. 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:55.279 The brain is essentially a computer, and consciousness is like a computer program. 00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:00.080 It ceases to run when the computer is turned off. 00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:05.120 Ceases to run when the computer is turned off. 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:09.440 Now, that's just a sophisticated way. 00:14:10.159 --> 00:14:18.320 Um took many more hundreds of pages than my father's words on his deathbed, in which he said, Walt dead is dead. 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:20.639 It's really the same thought. 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:23.200 And I can respect that. 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:32.559 I can understand how people would come to that conclusion unless they know something about what God says. 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:42.000 Because that is not the way the scriptures present life after death or what the nature of death is. 00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:49.120 So if you look up in a dictionary the word death, I think I made reference to this next week, you don't get a whole lot of help. 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:54.240 It almost makes you want to throw away your dead tree dictionary or your digital dictionary. 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:54.799 Okay? 00:14:55.120 --> 00:15:00.159 Typical dictionary definition of death is the state of being dead. 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:02.159 Isn't that helpful? 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:08.720 Another common definition of death is no longer being alive. 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:17.039 Thankfully, thankfully, God says a whole lot more about it than just that. 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:23.039 And so it's incumbent upon us to understand and deal with what God says. 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:29.519 Now, the word death is used in a variety of ways in the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament. 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:42.559 Many different ways, three primary ways, but virtually every time the word death is used, at its core, that which ties it all together is the idea of separation. 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:52.320 So when you come across the word death in the scriptures, you ought to ask yourself what kind of separation is being spoken about? 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:54.159 And I want to explain that. 00:15:54.399 --> 00:16:08.000 So it's a little bit like some of you who have been around for a long time will have heard the true statement that when you're reading your Bible and you see the word therefore, you better check and see what the word therefore is there for, because it's there for a reason. 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:10.480 Words have meaning. 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:17.679 And the word death has meaning, and at its core, it is separation. 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:25.200 Now, I'm going to suggest very simply, there's no rocket science, you don't have to have a PhD, you don't have to know Greek and Hebrew. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:30.960 This is just the three primary ways that the scriptures talk about death and describe it. 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:33.039 First of all, physical death. 00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:53.200 Physical death, as we read about it in Scripture, is a temporary separation of the body, the material parts of man, and the soul or spirit, or whatever term we want to give for the rest of man, the non-material parts. 00:16:53.600 --> 00:17:01.039 So sometimes we, you may hear people talk about, I believe in the bipartite nature of man. 00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:04.160 And what they mean typically is body and soul. 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:07.279 Others will say, I'm a tripartist. 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:11.759 That probably means they went to seminary. 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:16.160 But what they're saying by that is I believe in body, soul, and spirit. 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:22.960 The reality is scripture is much more broad and rich than that. 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:38.559 This immaterial part of man is sometimes called soul, sometimes called spirit, but there's a wide variety of other words that are used to describe this part of us that is not fleshly. 00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:52.319 There is talk in the scriptures of conscience, motivations, longings, desires, an old nature, a new nature. 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:57.599 A wide variety we tend to use the word heart to cover all of that. 00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:02.240 In our circles, heart is very used a great deal of time, rightfully so. 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:03.839 That's one of the biblical categories. 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:05.119 But it's only one. 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:07.839 And there's a whole lot more to it than that. 00:18:08.400 --> 00:18:15.119 But what is clear is there is a physical part of us and there is another part of us. 00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:37.359 And we could uh rightly go back to Genesis, and let me just read one verse from the creation account, Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, which we believe is not just somebody's or a group of people's imaginings, but this is describing true events. 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:46.400 We really believe that in history, space, and time there was a physical Adam and a physical Eve on a place called Eden. 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:51.200 It's a whole different discussion, but this is not just giving his thoughts. 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:56.640 This is God's description of a number of things, including creation. 00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:13.759 So in Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, then it says, God formed the man, and it's a generic term, mankind, Adam, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, formed mankind. 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:19.119 God formed the man of dust from the dust of the ground. 00:19:19.920 --> 00:19:22.640 So that's pointing to this material part. 00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:24.799 And I don't know how to picture it. 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:40.960 Maybe someday when we get to heaven, there'll be a videotape library or the equivalent, and we can hit the button, and maybe we'll see somehow or another God taking some dirt, some clay, some soil, and fashioning a human body. 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:44.480 But that human body by itself was not man. 00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:50.559 That was one of the two essential components of what makes man man. 00:19:51.039 --> 00:20:00.640 So he formed the man of dust from the ground, and he breathed into it. 00:20:02.559 --> 00:20:11.839 He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man then became a living being. 00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:28.640 Two natures, a physical, that was fashioned, and then this other part that God added to that, and that totality is man, is man, humanity, all men. 00:20:30.240 --> 00:20:51.920 The interesting thing is both, for this it does help to know Greek or Hebrew, the New Testament word for spirit is pneuma, the Old Testament word for spirit is ruach, and that's exactly he breathed the ruach, the pneuma, into this potential man that he has formed. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:59.359 And when the material and immaterial parts were brought together, you have a living soul, a living being. 00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:01.599 You have a man. 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:17.519 Physical death, then, in light of this understanding, and I've just cited this one verse, but there's many more we could look at, of the essential nature of man, two parts intended to be together. 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:26.160 Physical death is a temporary separation of these two parts. 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:29.359 A temporary separation. 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:43.759 Um, and there is a time in which all men everywhere, all women, all children, all human beings everywhere will be raised from the dead. 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:46.640 Jesus made it very clear in John chapter 5. 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:48.160 We touched on that briefly. 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:53.759 We'll be looking at this matter of resurrection in the coming weeks. 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:59.759 But it's very clear Jesus said that all the tombs, a day will come that all of the tombs will open. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:18.319 The people who have physically died have been separated, body and the rest of them, and all will rise, some will rise to a resurrection of life, and some will rise to a resurrection of judgments. 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:25.680 And that rising and resurrection is a reuniting of that which has been temporarily separated. 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:31.759 All men everywhere will live forever somewhere. 00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:33.519 Touched on that last week. 00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:36.559 We'll see it virtually every time as we go along. 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:39.759 All men everywhere live forever somewhere. 00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:44.160 There is life after death for all men. 00:22:45.279 --> 00:23:06.400 But what this is saying, the nature of resurrection and the temporary separation, both those who are raised to a resurrection of life and those who are raised to a resurrection of condemnation, no men anywhere will live anywhere forever without a body. 00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:09.279 All shall rise. 00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:14.480 All men everywhere will live somewhere forever. 00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:19.519 No men anywhere will live anywhere forever without a body. 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:23.680 The resurrection of all humanity. 00:23:24.319 --> 00:23:28.319 We'll unpack that more as it comes, but it's just real simple. 00:23:28.559 --> 00:23:36.640 Physical death is the separation of the material and the immaterial part, and resurrection is the bringing of that back together. 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:47.759 Second of all, another term that is used and referred to in numerous places in Scripture, what we would call spiritual death. 00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:51.920 You hear the word death, what kind of separation are we talking about? 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:58.160 Well, the separation of spiritual death is the creature from his creator. 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:07.200 Man was created with the capacity and the experience of intimate fellowship and interaction with God. 00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:12.319 Adam and Eve walked and talked with God in the garden in the cool of the day. 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:21.599 What separates us from the rest of the animal world is that we have this capacity for relationship with God. 00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:26.240 That's the way we are intended to exist as human beings. 00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:40.240 And what happened when Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which he was commanded not to eat, from which he was commanded not to eat. 00:24:40.480 --> 00:24:53.119 Well, it says very clearly, Genesis 2, verse 17, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but, but one, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. 00:24:53.519 --> 00:25:00.559 For on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. 00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:03.599 What kind of death is he talking about? 00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:05.440 It's not physical death. 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:09.279 Adam would live for another 930 years. 00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:26.559 He's talking about this separation because the reality is that, that's Genesis 2, 17, the reality is that it is our sins which separate us from God. 00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:28.640 Isaiah 59, verse 2. 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:32.880 Behold, your iniquities have made a separation between you and God. 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:37.279 Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. 00:25:37.759 --> 00:25:59.920 Up until the time that Adam and Eve partook of the tree of which they were not permitted to partake, they instantaneously died spiritually, separated from the relationship and fellowship with the Father for which they were created. 00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:09.119 Spiritual death is this separation spiritually from God, the relationship with God. 00:26:10.240 --> 00:26:22.319 Ephesians 2 makes it abundantly clear that we, before people, before they come to know Christ, are dead. 00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.079 They're alive physically, but dead spiritually. 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:41.119 As sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, we enter this world with a broken relationship with God, with a God-shaped vacuum, as it has been called, with a capacity and a need to relate to God. 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:51.519 And sin is that which separates us, but we were, let me get the right verse here. 00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:59.920 Ephesians chapter 2, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked. 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:07.119 Among which others once lived in the passions of flesh, carrying out the desires of the self. 00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:10.799 You were by nature children of wrath. 00:27:11.039 --> 00:27:13.440 You were by nature under condemnation. 00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:16.240 You were by nature separated from God. 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:30.799 But thanks be to God, God being rich in his mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. 00:27:31.119 --> 00:27:33.359 By grace you have been saved. 00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.359 God makes us alive through Christ. 00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:53.680 And what we really understand is that 1 Corinthians 5, 21, he who knew no sin became sin for us on the cross. 00:27:53.839 --> 00:27:55.599 That's what happened. 00:27:56.079 --> 00:28:04.240 He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:21.279 Because that which separates us spiritually from God and the condemnation that we deserve is placed on him, so that we may have that which we don't deserve, and that is the righteousness of God. 00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:26.799 In Pauline terminology, it's talking about our relationship with God. 00:28:27.839 --> 00:28:46.640 On the cross, when Jesus died, Matthew 27 46, as Jesus was dying, he said, among other things, Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit. 00:28:47.359 --> 00:28:50.559 That's going back to what Genesis is talking about. 00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:55.519 He died both physically and spiritually on the cross. 00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:00.319 He was separated, and he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:11.519 Never once for a nanosecond, or whatever the smallest increment of time is, from eternity past, never once had the Son been separated from the Father, and he was at the cross. 00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:18.960 Because he bore our penalty and sin, and sin separates from the life of God. 00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:29.039 In that case, he died spiritually, and then an hour or two, whatever it was later, it is finished. 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.960 He died, and the salvation of Christ was complete at that point. 00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:45.599 So this matter of spiritual death being different from physical death goes a long way for us to in our understanding of the cross and what it meant for Christ to die. 00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:52.559 Alright, so there's another kind of death, the third kind, and these are simple, folks. 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:54.240 This is not rocket science. 00:29:54.400 --> 00:29:55.920 It's just what God has said. 00:29:56.079 --> 00:30:01.519 And God doesn't typically try to make it hard for us, especially with matters of life and death. 00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:02.079 Okay. 00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:12.000 So there is what the Bible calls and describes as eternal death or the second death. 00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:14.799 And this is separation. 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:16.240 You come across the word death. 00:30:16.319 --> 00:30:19.119 What kind of separation are we talking about? 00:30:19.440 --> 00:30:34.000 And if you study the passages that talk about it, you will find that it is spiritual death made permanent. 00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:37.920 We're born spiritually dead. 00:30:38.799 --> 00:30:49.119 And unless something happens, we are raised to a resurrection of judgment where that spiritual state will continue forever. 00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:53.759 And that is a description of what we commonly call hell. 00:30:53.920 --> 00:30:57.920 We're going to talk about that towards the end of the message series. 00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:01.119 I think it's the last thing I'm going to talk about, and then I'll run away. 00:31:01.759 --> 00:31:03.039 And we'll talk about hell. 00:31:03.119 --> 00:31:07.599 And the reality of hell is eternal separation from God. 00:31:08.240 --> 00:31:12.799 And what we understand, put it in the context of relationship. 00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:22.319 You were designed, you were designed by your Creator to have a relationship with God, a living, vital relationship with God. 00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:28.000 There's this God-shaped vacuum that demands to be fulfilled, demands to be filled. 00:31:28.319 --> 00:31:37.119 And unless something changes with the sin that separates us from God, then that simply continues on forever. 00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:44.000 And in those passages it is clear that it is forever and ever, but it is not hallelujah. 00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:55.440 Just a preview of the nature of what I'm understanding hell to be is this isolation, this separation from God. 00:31:55.759 --> 00:32:00.400 Sometimes people joke and they say, Oh, I don't have a problem with hell, all my friends will be there. 00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:04.559 Well, they may all be there, but you will have no contact with them. 00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:13.039 It is utter, eternal, cosmic, existential, agonizing isolation. 00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:18.960 Why is solitary confinement such a penalty? 00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:29.519 Because we desperately have a need to interact with other people, even if it's convicts tapping on the wall and talking with each other in various ways. 00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:43.759 But this is absolute, utter isolation, isolation from God, isolation from other people, and that will wrench the soul forever because there we don't, we're not in tune with it. 00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:50.799 But this need for connection with other people and with God goes to the core of who we are. 00:32:51.200 --> 00:33:02.400 And unless something happens, then that isolation is undescribably awful and forever. 00:33:03.680 --> 00:33:14.400 So just uh bringing a couple of things together here: physical death, temporary separation from the body and the soul or spirit or whatever, that has a remedy. 00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:21.839 The remedy to physical death is resurrection, bringing together that which has been torn asunder. 00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:26.640 Spiritual death, separation of man from his creator, has a remedy. 00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:37.599 That remedy is regeneration, being born again, a spiritual connection being re-established between you and God. 00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:46.000 And the difficulty is that eternal death there is no remedy for. 00:33:46.559 --> 00:34:02.400 And my friends, if you understood anything about life and life after death, that you want and need desperately a remedy, both for physical and for spiritual death. 00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:12.480 All right, let me try to uh to deal briefly with this question. 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:17.679 And when I die, how am I supposed to uh envision that? 00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:21.760 Or what what am I to understand uh about that? 00:34:23.360 --> 00:34:29.199 Um a couple of things. 00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:35.920 First of all, you have not died, I have not died, we have not experienced this yet. 00:34:36.480 --> 00:34:40.800 But we have no reason to say I know nothing about it. 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:52.559 I can suggest two or three things that I would encourage you to grasp a hold of, and it will begin to transform your understanding of death. 00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:57.760 First of all, uh Philippians 1, 20 to 23. 00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:07.920 Let me ask you to turn there if you have your Bible or open up your device and bring up uh Philippians chapter 1, verses 20 to 23. 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:14.719 Um the uh the context is Paul, it's in his last days. 00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:19.039 He's anticipating in any case, he's anticipating death. 00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:25.039 And he he lets the curtain open up a little bit and lets you know what's going through his heart. 00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:30.960 And of all people, uh Paul had an understanding of what is to come. 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:40.639 So he says in verse 20, um, it's my eager expectation, and he's gonna start talking about death. 00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:42.400 Just notice the way he says it. 00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:44.719 It's an eager expectation. 00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:52.000 He's something, it's something he's looking forward to, something he eagerly desires. 00:35:52.480 --> 00:36:00.880 Not just because his body was beginning to fall apart, or just because he was a cynical old man with a death wish. 00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:02.719 That's not it at all. 00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:06.159 If that's what you think Paul is talking about, you better read your Bible. 00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:07.679 That is not Paul. 00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:11.679 Paul had a grasp of what is to come. 00:36:12.079 --> 00:36:17.199 So he says in verse 20, it's my eager expectation and it's my hope. 00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:22.880 A hope, in a biblical term, is not a hope-so, maybe yes, maybe no. 00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:27.280 It's a no-so over something that's not here yet. 00:36:27.519 --> 00:36:27.840 Okay? 00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:33.920 So this biblical hope has a certainty about it because God has revealed some things. 00:36:34.239 --> 00:36:42.400 So he's saying, it is my eager expectation and my hope that I will not all be ashamed, but will have full courage. 00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:47.760 Now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 00:36:47.920 --> 00:36:56.719 So he approached life with a confidence and an eager expectation, and he approached death with a confidence and eager expectation. 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:05.760 Uh so that now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:14.000 For to me to live is Christ and dying, death, is gain. 00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:20.159 Gain something valuable being added. 00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:28.719 You see, we don't, we don't, we're not heavenly minded enough to grasp this. 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:36.159 We look at death as the absolute utter loss, and we will avoid it at any costs. 00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:40.719 For a believer, that is absolutely the wrong way of seeing it. 00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:44.400 Paul says, gain, gain, gain. 00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:48.800 He goes on in verse 23, and he says, I'm hard pressed between the two. 00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:56.239 My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is better by far. 00:37:57.280 --> 00:37:58.559 Better by far. 00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:02.400 Literal Greek, more far, better. 00:38:02.639 --> 00:38:04.639 It's good Greek, lousy English. 00:38:04.960 --> 00:38:06.159 Better by far. 00:38:06.639 --> 00:38:28.400 To be there and to experience that is to experience the greatest reality there is in that for which I was created, and for which every joy and every sense of fulfillment and every desire is but in this life is but a preview, a foretaste of that which is to come. 00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:33.039 It is better by far, much more better, much more better. 00:38:36.159 --> 00:38:41.280 There are longings that we have, there are desires that we have. 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:47.840 In fact, actually, I'm not convinced that any of our desires are fundamentally evil. 00:38:48.159 --> 00:38:51.039 We do evil things with our desires. 00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:58.239 But the longings, there's things that are built into us, and we keep looking, it's like a trailer with a hitch. 00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:00.000 We keep looking for a hitch. 00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:16.800 We've got a tongue in the trailer, and it's designed to hitch onto something, so we hitch it on to something here, we hitch it on to marriage, or we hitch it on to kids, or we hitch it on to acceptance, or success, or joy, or a beautiful sunset, all kinds of good things. 00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:19.519 The problem is that hitch doesn't fit. 00:39:19.679 --> 00:39:23.679 That's but a pointer to the real thing which is to come. 00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:26.639 They never satisfy. 00:39:27.199 --> 00:39:37.039 The desires that are within us are meant to be fulfilled, but they will not find their ultimate and true fulfillment in this life. 00:39:37.280 --> 00:39:41.199 They are pointers to the life that is to come. 00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:52.239 While we do not long for the process of dying, we ought to long for that which death brings. 00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:55.679 Huge distinction there. 00:39:56.159 --> 00:39:58.320 I do not long for death. 00:39:59.519 --> 00:40:00.960 The process of dying. 00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:04.159 I've told you once, I came really close to it one time. 00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:05.760 No fun. 00:40:07.360 --> 00:40:08.960 I don't long for that. 00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:13.599 But I long for that which God has promised. 00:40:14.559 --> 00:40:16.400 That death will usher in. 00:40:17.440 --> 00:40:18.719 Better gain. 00:40:18.800 --> 00:40:20.960 It's like a pearl of great price. 00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:29.679 That if you find it out in a field, Jesus gave the illustration, if you find it out in the field, you'll sell everything because of the great value of that. 00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:37.440 Jim Elliott, martyred missionary, said he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. 00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:40.000 And he was talking about this life and the life to come. 00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:44.559 He is no fool who loses everything in this life and gains the life to come. 00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:46.480 It's all a matter of perspective. 00:40:46.639 --> 00:40:51.360 And our perspective is about this big. 00:40:52.079 --> 00:41:01.199 And God wants it to be embracing not only what we see around us now as though this is the truest reality that is. 00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:06.719 No, this is but a shadow of the reality that comes. 00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:14.639 Write those down if you're interested. 00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:20.800 Key passages that will help us get a handle on what we should think about when I die. 00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:29.519 It doesn't tell us exactly how it will feel, but it tells us, it gives us some clues about what it is. 00:41:30.079 --> 00:41:36.400 When we die, we are home, home at last, home, home. 00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:39.599 Thank God Almighty, we're home at last. 00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.480 It's the place that everything in this life has been pointing towards. 00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:49.840 It's the fulfillment of every satisfaction in this life as we see it. 00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:56.239 The Hebrews passage, well, the 2 Corinthians passage talks about this body and this life as being a tent. 00:41:56.320 --> 00:41:58.880 It's temporary and it will get taken away. 00:41:59.039 --> 00:42:13.360 And what we long for is the resurrection body and the resurrection life, because that's the real body and that's the real life, of which this is all but a monotone, and that will be in glorious. 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:16.079 I don't even have words for it. 00:42:17.039 --> 00:42:21.199 Codachrome is too wimpy to even begin to describe it. 00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:27.039 Remember Alice in Wonder. 00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:29.920 No, um The Witch is Dead, The Witch Is Dead. 00:42:32.159 --> 00:42:32.960 Wizard of Oz. 00:42:33.199 --> 00:42:35.280 Dorothy on her way to the Wizard of Oz. 00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:36.480 The movie. 00:42:36.639 --> 00:42:36.960 Thank you. 00:42:37.039 --> 00:42:38.000 Thank you, dear. 00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:46.079 The movie starts out in black and white, and as she's going down the brick road, suddenly these colors appear. 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:52.239 And that's but the poorest illustration of what we will experience. 00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:55.760 The best of this life. 00:42:57.360 --> 00:42:58.000 The best. 00:42:58.559 --> 00:43:02.559 I don't know what your most phenomenal experience in life has been. 00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:04.079 Just meditate on that a little bit. 00:43:04.239 --> 00:43:06.079 Maybe it was the birth of a child. 00:43:06.159 --> 00:43:07.519 Maybe that was the worst moment of your life. 00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:08.079 I don't know. 00:43:08.239 --> 00:43:18.800 But whatever is the best moment of your life, the best moment of your life is nothing to be compared to that which is to come. 00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:21.440 It is but a mere foretaste. 00:43:24.079 --> 00:43:26.400 The foretaste is not meant to be savored. 00:43:27.199 --> 00:43:32.239 It's meant to draw you to the full reality and realness. 00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:37.119 The best of life on earth is a glimpse of heaven. 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:40.400 That's an interesting thought. 00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:45.280 One writer said it this way the best of life on earth is a glimpse of heaven. 00:43:45.519 --> 00:43:48.639 The worst of life on earth is a glimpse of hell. 00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:55.679 For Christians, the present life is the closest they will ever come to hell. 00:43:56.400 --> 00:44:03.199 For non Christians, the best of This life is the best they will ever experience. 00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:07.920 And we're made for so much more than that. 00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:15.679 I want to finally close with this an analogy that might help us get a handle on this. 00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:34.639 I was drawn to this thinking of Romans chapter 8, where Paul talks about the frustration and suffering of this present age, and he says the sufferings of the present age is not worthy to be compared, to be balanced out with the glory that is to come. 00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:46.480 And he talks about we, together with all creation, groan with longings, with groanings for the full revelation of the Son of Christ, Sons of God, of us in heaven. 00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:50.559 We are groaning for that which is to come by God's grace. 00:44:50.880 --> 00:45:03.599 And then he says it's like a mother in the pains of childbirth, the pains of childbirth for the joy set before her. 00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:13.519 Now, taking that imagery of a birth, I just want to plant a picture, a thought, and again we'll come back to it in coming weeks. 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:18.000 This life is not when your life began. 00:45:18.239 --> 00:45:21.440