Probably should get some lights on, huh? Oh, I've read it. I've read it. Okay So Matthew we ready What do I see shining on your finger? Is that what I think it is? Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. When was this, just the? Yesterday. Yeah, OK. That explains the nonstop smiles. All right. Well, that's outstanding. So great. Do you already have a month in mind or anything? Not yet. Not yet? I was thinking probably October. Okay, we're good. Well, welcome everyone to a new school year of Gibbs. I trust you enjoyed your summer, your time off. I don't know how much time off it was. Was it mid-June? A couple months anyway, so it's good to be back. joining you. Just the first two sessions, maybe the third one, as we're going to finish up biblical distinctions. But we're going to start with a little devotion time. You can open your Bibles to Exodus 34. And I thought it would be appropriate to start our devotion in the Old Testament and in a passage with the law, so we can find ourselves under the law. No, you'll actually find in this passage, which actually does have something to do with the law, you'll find the overriding theme to be grace and applications that we can make aplenty in this passage of Exodus, even toward our Christian life. And it's just good to just kind of outline again, even from this Old Testament passage, basic and important truths that we would want to remember every day in our Christian life, and obviously even students that are under pressure with a lot of things going on, thinking of Gibbs and things. Just a reminder again of the key ingredients, encouraging ingredients of our Christian life. So we'll read, we'll go through, say some comments, and then we'll have a word of prayer. Following that, we'll begin our biblical distinctions. And I have either good news or bad news for you on the distinctions. We won't be getting to the second handout, or third or fourth handout, whatever it is. We're just going to cover one of them tonight. There's a couple reasons for that. So a couple of them are, one of them's my fault, one of them's not my fault. I'll focus on the one that's not my fault, hide behind that. But anyway, we'll have plenty to do as it is. I think we'll end up utilizing our whole night, I would assume. So we're in Exodus, though, chapter 34. And we are what is sometimes called the second giving of the law, where Moses is going to receive the law. As you know, the reason there is a need for a second giving of the law is because things didn't go so good with the first giving. Not only did the people break the commandments and the spirit of the law before it was even brought down, but Moses physically broke the tablets as well. And so we see, after a period of time, in Exodus 34, there's going to be a second giving of the law. And we're going to begin looking at chapter 34, verse 1. The Lord said to Moses to cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. So be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourselves to me there on the top of the mountain. and no man shall come up with you and let no man be seen throughout all of the mountain. Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. So we see, just looking at first, we see a problem. The problem is we have a broken law. And again, we're just making applications. We know the context of the broken law was the people had broken the spirit of law. Moses had broken the physical law. But this is just a reminder for all of us as we think of Romans 3.23 again, how we have all sinned, and we've all come short of the glory of God, coming short of the glory of God meaning His standards, His holiness, or even the things, the righteousness of the law that is contained in the law. We see a broken people and a broken individual. But what we see is there's hope here. As the Lord is providing hope, he is offering a meeting place where Moses could come and where there would be a restoration. And that's what's good news because we all know that we are broken. We all know that we have failures in our given day and given moments of our lives. And there's always then this idea of hope. There's a meeting place, the Lord, He doesn't say, that's it. I've had enough of you. You're horrible. He never does that. In fact, what we see here is the Lord is inviting Moses to come to him. And he comes to him individually. We can apply that as we're just to come to him alone. Of course, we know, again, the reason why Moses is coming individually here is because of the holiness of God. And the mount is holy. And so it's to be not to have any other people there. This was a special arrangement between Moses and God. But again, it's good for us to realize who the Lord is and His awesome purity. So Moses does as he says, as he was told to do, and he's going to come before the Lord just as the Lord had prescribed. So Moses is going to operate here on the basis of faith. He cut two tablets, verse four, of stone like the first ones. And Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai. And as the Lord had commanded him, he took in his hand the two tablets of stones. So what we see is Moses is following exactly what the Lord had given him to do. So at this point, verse five, we see now, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with Moses there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. He proclaimed his own name. Proclaimed is a messenger. It's a communication word. The Lord is communicating, and he's communicating about his name. And what's in a name? Well, you could ask Shakespeare. Shakespeare asked the same question, right? What's in a name? A name is very much then what comes to represent or symbolize the person, and particularly who he is and what he's known for. And so the Lord is going to give a proclamation about him. And what is it? It's going to be about his attributes. in verse six, a very encouraging verse in our Bible. It says, the Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, Jehovah, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. And so he just rattles off a handful of these attributes as he is desiring to proclaim who he is and that which is true of him to Moses and obviously through Moses to us and to everyone. Which attributes does he want to put the spotlight on? Which attributes does he want us to focus when we come before the Lord and we're with him and his presence It's interesting, it's not wrath, it's not his anger, it's not his hatred of sin. If it was those attributes, of course we would be completely convicted and would have no recourse. No, instead he wants us to see and to understand how he is what? Merciful. Merciful and gracious. Mercy is the word that really could be translated with the idea of pity, having great compassion. And so we see that God in His very essence is a God of compassion, a God of mercy, and here we see on top of that, He is gracious. And longsuffering, he's patience and he's abounding in goodness and truth. And abounding is again the idea of an unending supply. So again, what a glimpse we see of this Old Testament God that sometimes we know in some circles we view him as an ogre and a monster and always one who's enjoying death and so forth. And there are some hard passages in the Old Testament, but here is a passage. that clearly shows us that this God of the Old Testament is the same as in the New. And here we see a God that is merciful. And this is a God, then, that we can approach as He wants us to come to Him. Moses comes to Him, meets Him in the mountain, and discovers this proclamation of the very goodness of God and His mercy. and his truth. He goes on to say in verse 7, God is keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And by no means he's clearing the guilty. So how is he doing that? We get a hint there. There's got to be some means he does it. He's forgiving all of our sins, but by no means is he just clearing blanks, you know, clearing the guilty. He knows we can do that. We'll see he will successfully do that at the cross. But going on he says he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children in the third and fourth generation. Which means there's a rejection that's implied, there's going to be mercy, there's going to be forgiveness, but there's also going to be a lack of that mercy for those who are, in verse 7, rejecting. So we understand there's that accountability there, which isn't explained in detail here, but we can apply that as we know many other passages from the New Testament. And then Moses, verse 8, makes haste and bows his head toward the earth and worship. So what do we see? We see the Lord is proclaiming, He's giving us truth of His person, namely even his attributes. And then we see a response here in verse 8, one of worship. But in order to worship, you're going to have to have what first? You're going to have to have faith first. You're going to have to say, yep, that is exactly who you are, and I believe the proclamation that you're making. And as a response of faith, Moses worships. He is adoring. He is saying God has worth. And so we see worship. But then he also then says in verse 9, if now I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your inheritance, as Moses immediately then makes intercession for the people. But as he sees the grace that God has proclaimed himself to be, Moses then worships and admits. And he worships first, he has faith first, there's worship to the Lord, and then there's an admittance of what they have done. And as he and the people behind him, there is an acknowledgement that they're stiff-necked, that they have failed, and there is an appeal to God's goodness. So what do we see in our ingredients so far? We see hope, there's a meeting place. We see sin, there's a brokenness here. But there's hope as Moses is to meet the Lord in a particular place. There's anticipation. Once we're meeting the Lord, we see there's proclamation, there's truth that he's giving us. He's revealing himself to us. And what a wonderful revelation it is. What a great picture of love and mercy. And then there's worship. There's faith that bows its knee and expresses itself in worship. And there's even then admittance and request. And what does God then say in verse 10? He said, Behold, I make a covenant before all your people. I will do marvels such have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. What a promise. Wouldn't you love to have that promise personally? In fact, in a sense, we do, as we can apply many, again, New Testament passages, how the Lord is for us, who can be against us, and how can he not freely give us all things, and we've been blessed with all spiritual blessings. But at any rate, the Lord tells Moses, I will be with you and your people, and it'll be really, really obvious. Well, that's grace, isn't it? These people did not deserve it. We know, as Moses just made reference to in verse nine, we're stiff-necked people, and they're showered here with grace. That's God's doing. And God goes on in the rest of this chapter and will reveal different things that he will do. Notice in verse 24, jumping ahead, he says, I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders. Neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in this year. So here we see physical blessing, which is awarded to this physical people in light of this covenant they have with God. And yet we can see spiritual application that can be made to us in the New Testament. So what does we see in verse 10 then? We see God's grace. We see God's grace and action as God is going to shower these people. If they are going to be faithful to Him, if they will walk with Him, He is going to bless them beyond their wildest dreams. And He will provide for them and He promises this. Of course, there's conditional conditions that go with that in light of the covenant, as we know. But this is, again, the grace of God to these broken people. He is promising these things. And verse 28, we see he was there with the Lord, Moses, for 40 days. Notice he was where? With the Lord. And there was a face-to-face conversational presence there, an intimacy and a communion that lasts for 40 days. He didn't eat or drink water, and God then wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant and the 10 commandments. And so we see there was communion in verse 28. And what is the end of it all? Verse 29. When it was so, Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain, and that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with the Lord. And his face, we know from 2 Corinthians 3, his countenance was so glorious they had to put a veil over him. And what is this a picture, what is this telling us again? The glory of God. The amazing goodness and glory of God. Let's turn to John chapter 15. As we think of the glory of God, we should realize that is of great relevance to us, you and I, every day of our life. The glory of God. comes out in verse seven. If you abide in me, Jesus says to his disciples now, church truth, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, what I have proclaimed as we borrow from Exodus, then you will ask what you desire, like Moses did, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so you will be my disciples. And so you see the purpose of our Christian life isn't even to be bearing fruit, or it is to be allowing the Lord to be glorified through us. And he's glorified through us as we're bearing fruit, and as we're abiding in his word, and as we're responding to his proclamation. But notice it's the glory of God that is the goal. And so how did Moses get there? We saw that There was hope, hope in this meeting place that God had prescribed. We see that God then proclaimed and revealed himself. And there was faith, as Moses mixes what God has to say with faith and then worship. And with that response to the Lord, the Lord brings about even more grace and more blessing. And there is communion, as Moses was face to face with the Lord. And there was glory. And so it is in our Christian life, isn't it? We need to hear, as this passage reminds us, of abiding in God's words, hearing what God has to say, studying it, seeing it, reading it, knowing it, but most importantly, believing it. And hearing that, believing it, which will trigger a heart of worship. And a heart of worship, then, is a heart of dependence on the Lord. A heart of worship is one where there is communion, and as the Lord works, He's glorified. So wouldn't that be great as Gibbs students if it was more and more evident as you are spending time in the word and are studying as you have to do and taking your tests and things, but as you're connecting with the word of God, you're connecting in such a way that there's faith and worship and therefore communion and even the Lord glorifying himself through you. That is the wonderful path of a Christian life, isn't it? It's not one that really depends on us by way of producing, but it certainly is where it depends on us by way of depending and responding to the Lord. And so as we start our studies, let's trust that we will have a dependent mentality and indeed hear the proclamations of the Lord in His name and worship accordingly. All right, you ready to start? Distinctions, why don't we have a word of prayer, and we will transition into, well, unfortunately, the heavy topic tonight of death. We're going to have a death-like night, but it should be encouraging, too, we trust. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for just even this example in the Old Testament. Even surrounded by the law, we see grace and relationship. as really the essence of what's going on. And we thank you, Father, that we have relationship with you through Christ. And thank you for these men and women and their desire to study and to grow in that relationship. And may we just become even more in tune with your proclamation and what you proclaim as you proclaim your name. and who you are, what you've done, and your attributes. May we mix that with faith, may we find ourselves worshiping, may we just enjoy your grace and communion with you as a result of that, and may you be glorified. So we pray now for our studies tonight, that you also would cause your word to just be, to stick to our thinking and we would understand and be encouraged and even be the wiser for even our own understanding or for helping those or answering those around us. So we pray, Father, you would give us ears to hear, and direct with all that is said and taught, so that you would be well pleased, we ask, in Jesus' name. Amen. So we get to your handout. Number, I don't know if you're on the same number sequence, should be 28, is that right? And we're looking at seven deaths of scripture, and I trust the bulk of this is review again for you, you've heard this. We would encourage you to learn it, to listen well, and to be benefited because these are, again, important distinctions. As we know, the Bible is one of distinctions, and you've learned quite a few of them. In fact, you're almost toward the end of your learning of all of these biblical distinctions. And this one was distinguishing between the different types of death. What is death? Death, as we think of a medical definition, what is a medical definition of death? I'm sure there's complicated ones. We have a couple of nurses here tonight, so I'll ask them. What is, medically, what is death? Okay, your brain, not even your heart, just your, even more? Your heart can still function. Okay, so your brain is not functioning anymore. Yeah, so I got the idea of a permanent cessation of your body functions, but not even really your body functions, more importantly, your brain functions. So if you have a brain that's not functioning and hasn't been functioning, you are labeled clinically dead. Go with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 12, and let's just see a quick explanation or view of death biblically. as we're thinking of the physical aspect in this case, Ecclesiastes 12. Solomon is waxing poetic and philosophically here in Ecclesiastes, and he says, as he's thinking of the older days, he's talking about when you get older, earlier in chapter 12, in verse 6, he says, remember your Creator, before the silver cord is loose, just another way of saying before you get too old. Verse 7, he says, then when you get old, the dust will return to the earth as it was. And the spirit will return to God who gave it. So in verse 7, we see a description here of physically your body returns to dust, which is where it began. And the spirit, in this case, we'll see it's the human spirit that was given to you, which is the personification of, or it is the idea of life, physical life. That physical life will return to God who gave it. So death is when that life, is no more. So death is, by definition then, a Webster is a termination or cessation of life or the absence of life. So death is defined as the termination or cessation of life or the absence of life. Now, separation is something that occurs in death, and this is one of the key concepts about death, is that death is always going to involve separation. And you've heard that, but it's good to just again be reminded of that, that when the Bible particularly is talking about death, we're talking about a concept of separation. And so there's going to be different contexts, and we're going to see there's different things that are separated from one another. So there's actually going to be, that we'll study, seven different deaths that the Bible makes mention of. Every one of them is going to involve some sort of separation. Well, is this just a Christian understanding, a biblical understanding? And we'll see that actually, no. I just happened to see this website, the Times of India. This is a very Buddhist, excuse me, a Hindu source. And notice their headline, Phenomenon of Death, the Soul and Body Separation. So they're going to go on and talk about the same way of death as we would, that there's a separation of the soul from the body, and they don't understand the human spirit here. So the idea of this separation is worldwide. There is a element of death that's very final, and there's a separation. Of course, their explanation for it, and they actually will say it's a good thing and death is good, and eventually you can escape this, even the cycle of death through reincarnation by reaching your ultimate state and so forth. But that obviously is not biblical, but the understanding of death as separation is there. Now, to better understand death, we need to also understand the makeup of the human being. And the human being has, if you have notes or whatever, I would encourage you to draw this little diagram. I know you've probably seen it a lot, but it's a very helpful one. The external part of you is your body. That's your physical, your flesh and your bones. We all have, obviously, duh, a body. But we also have an internal part of us, the real you, the essence of life, and that is your soul, in which we simplify and say this is where your emotion and your volition and intellect dwell, mentality, emotion, volition. all is part of your soul. This is the inner you. You have a conscience. A conscience is a self-awareness, as you are aware of yourself and your physical body and your existence. So you have a physical body and you have this internal, intangible you that we call the soul, and it consists of your intellect, emotion, and volition. You also then have a spirit, and the human spirit is really what we would want to call that, the human spirit, and the human spirit is what gives you a God consciousness. I sometimes illustrate it this way as we think of plants and animals and then humans, and plants have a body but no soul. So plants, we could say, would have a physical awareness of sun or rain or moisture or whatever. Then you have animals. Animals have a body and a soul because can an animal wag its tail and show that it's happy or snarl if it's not, thinking of a dog? So there is some emotional capability of expression with animals. Can animals also make decisions and have some form of intellect? They do. So the animal has a soul, and even in volition, the animal has volition, but the volition is largely directed by instinct with an animal. So it's almost more of a robotic type of volition, but in many cases, it's instinct-driven. So we see then that animals have a, body awareness, a self-awareness, a physical awareness, but then we have the human being who's made unique and different from any other thing that's been created. The human being has a body and a soul, but also a human spirit which corresponds to God. So the human being has an awareness of God, knows that there's something out there besides themselves. And that's why I always say, go to any culture, go to any continent on any century, and you will find human beings, no matter what their background or advancement or whatever you want to call it, they have a spiritual expression. They have a religion. They have some idea of a god or gods, whether it's animism or a developed monotheism or whatever it would be, you find it unanimously across the board amongst humans. That makes us uniquely distinct and different than any other created being. We have this human spirit which gives us a God consciousness. What else do we have, though? We also have a sin nature that we're born with, as we'll see, that actually has a claim and a form of authority and bondage over our body, as it holds our body and our soul in bondage to its whims and desires. So remember, then, the internal part, the human being as a body and a soul and a spirit, a three-dimensional aspect. And that soul and, excuse me, the spirit is what makes us truly unique in creations on Earth or actually on Earth. We also, though, have the sin nature. The sin nature, again, gravitates toward a warfare, even, toward God. The sin nature is championed by Satan. The sin nature values a corrupt world system. And the essence of the sin nature, if we were to put it in two words, is what? me first. The sin nature manifests itself in a life that's expressed outwardly, selfish desire, me first. And again, every person has a different way of expressing that, different interests, hobbies, etc., but it always comes out, me first. So the sin nature is within us. It's part of us, and this is true of every human being before you're saved. So here's a diagram we can use to make that. Here we see a person with a body, and we just put in the soul, because internally here is their intellect, their emotion, and their volition. We note they have a human spirit. This is graphically shown by this plug-in cord that's dangling, where every human being knows there's something to plug into. There is a God consciousness and a spiritual dimension within us, though at physical birth it is not plugged in. It is not connected, so there is a little bit of a space there. There is not that relationship. We said that we also have a sin nature, which is in blue here. And this sin nature reflects the fact that we're not saved. Excuse me, the question mark reflects the fact that we're not saved. And that's showing that, again, natural man does not have that relationship with the Lord. Now we see the sin nature. The sin nature is going to find its association or connection with the enemy. We see in the upper right corner there we have Satan, and he is the enemy of God. He is the one who is doing a battle with God and all that God represents. He has what we call the world. He is the small g God of this world. And he uses this world as like a means of messages. He has messages that come out. that are telling the human being what they need, what they should value, what is important, what life is about. The world is going to answer key questions as far as what I should value, what I should pursue, even what is true. But the world, of course, is directed by and massaged and manipulated by Satan as he is desiring to contradict and confront anything that God is doing or saying. So we see the blue arrow showing the path of how all of this is going to work. Satan is the god of this world. The world reflects messages like a radio to the brain. The human brain then hears these things and the soul and the body are held in bondage by the sin nature who says, me first. And this Me First, we always tend to think of it as sin and immorality. You know, drunkenness and debauchery and gluttony and sexual lasciviousness. Yeah, that's the works of the flesh. And again, I think that's the deception of Satan. That is true, but that is really not where the majority of Me First works of the flesh get pumped out. The majority of them get pumped out in places like church on a Sunday morning. The majority of works of the flesh get pumped out from a desire for human good and morality. Because even though you're trying to be good and put your best foot forward and do what is right, God is saying that at the source of this, the motive behind this, is your self-image being thought well of. excelling, doing better than others, et cetera. And again, hopefully you're well versed in this. You know that someone can be very moral and yet be very ungodly and not have any real connection to God. So we understand then the blues represent the unbeliever. As we'll add later, we also could understand that as the carnal believer in a minute. Right now, that's what the unbeliever operates under. They have a bend in their flesh, their sin nature, toward moral things or immoral things, or maybe a combination of both. Everything in life is about me first. How do I look and how am I perceived, and how do I compare to others, and where is my value? My value is found in my performance, etc. So we see then, this is the body makeup of the unbelieving. The good news is God doesn't want to leave us in unbelief, and the good news is that you can become saved. You can become identified with Christ, and when you trust Him alone, you'll realize then that your spirit will be made alive. You'll see the sin nature's authority in your life will have been broken, and you will see that you then receive by way of new birth a new nature. And this new nature directly corresponds to God and corresponds to these new desires that come as being part of a new spiritual created being and having new spiritual life. You now have a desire to please the Lord and do what is His pleasure. Not only that, but you are then indwelt with the Holy Spirit. God Himself indwells and takes up residence and lives inside of every one of His children that have believed upon Him and that have eternal life. And that Holy Spirit becomes a tremendous source of teaching and different ministries. But in this case, we're focusing on how the Spirit within you is the power source and the enabling spirit of living in a godly right way, of fulfilling the desires of the new nature. So we then understand all of this is because you are a new creation in Christ. You have become born again. So you have new birth. And so we have another chart. We're just going to fill out the other side of it and see what this looks like then. We've seen the blues represents what you were before you were saved. We're going to see this lightning bolt showing salvation. So that's just some really cool graphic way, right, yay, to show something supernatural. So what do we have? We have now a connection. We have now the power of God, the life of God, the spirit of God, now coming in to the believer. The believer is saved. He now can make sense of the word of God, and God uses the scripture, uses his word to, again, communicate his values, his truth, his wisdom, and perspective for life coming from his word. We are born again, new creation, which means we have a new nature. A new nature that has desires to put the things of Christ first. To see God and His values and who He is to be championed in our expression of life. So we see then, the last thing that's, and we see that the power of the sin nature was broken when we put our faith in Christ. We'll see that in a minute, a little bit later tonight. We'll see how this was a death, actually, where the power and the authority of the sin nature no longer has right to rule. So you have been released from that bondage, and you have been made free by declaration, a legal declaration of God. And now the Reds are what are to be carried on in life. We're missing the Holy Spirit here. That's my fault. I forgot. I grabbed the wrong slide. But we have the Holy Spirit that would be in there. You can add the Holy Spirit right in there. The Holy Spirit corresponds with the chain. It is now this new source of authority, this new source of power. And the Holy Spirit now can take your body and your soul and animate it so that it is well-pleasing to the Lord. Oh, there it is. All right. So this then is a chart that I would encourage you to just to grasp. I've used this in the last trip that I was in Africa just a few weeks ago as we taught Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8. And this chart was really helpful because once you establish it and teach it, then you could just refer to it. And we started just talking about the reds and the blues, you know, and this is the blues and this is the reds without having it up there. You just get that in your mind, you start seeing then that there is these two sides, there's this conflict, that conflict is out there, Satan and God, but it's in here as well as expressed by way of the Spirit according to Galatians 5 and our flesh. So, as a result of all these changes, though, the Spirit of God can now take the Word of God and, again, motivate and direct with these new desires. With that in mind, then, we can begin to see what's going on inside of the person and what's going on by way of these different deaths, because we now can look in our scriptures at the seven deaths of scripture. The first one would be, I'm gonna skip this, spiritual death. So we need to talk about spiritual death. The first mention of the word death is going to be found in Genesis chapter 2, and that's where we're going to go, Genesis 2. Now again, I know, trust that this is review for all of you, but let's read it again as if it was the first time and see if we can glean some good things. as we read the story of Genesis, and that's the story of creation. Genesis 1 is the bigger picture of creation, day by day. Genesis 2 is developing in detail the sixth day where God created man. And we're in chapter 2, verse 7, and we see that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. So this is the beginning of life. This is life that comes from God. This breathing into the nostrils would be the human spirit that God has put inside of man. This human spirit was not separated at this time, but was connected. So Adam immediately knew God, knew his place under God, had a relationship with God, and enjoyed this spiritual dynamic. part of life. It's the same human spirit that Ecclesiastes 12, 7, where we started tonight, that he says when that is taken away, what do we have? We're going to have physical death. But here we see in verse 7, God injects the life principle. And that's important to realize it's the life principle. You think that life principle, think of thinking of it in the physical world. Think of the plant life and the biological life and so forth. The life principle was instilled by God in the first week of creation and then it replicates itself and maintains itself all the way through, right? So we have trees that have seeds and this whole reproductive system and humans with their reproductive system and so forth. So the life principle is put into action here in Genesis chapter 1 with all things and in chapter 2, 7 particularly with man. So humans have a physical and a spiritual life, verse 7, this relationship with God. And so the Lord God then planted a garden, verse eight, eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the garden all the trees and things pleasant to sight that were good for food, the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So we see there's a tree of life. We also note as we go further in verse 15 of Genesis 2, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and to keep it. And here you could even see a beginning of a theology of labor and of work, as He, God, has given man a particular place and responsibility, and this was to be done with a sense of joy and out of service to the Lord. And so this labor then was God-given, and it was a responsibility and a dominion given to Adam, and that was a very good thing. Verse 16, though, we also see how the Lord commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you can freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in that day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Now we see the first mention of verse 17 of the word die, or the concept of death. introduced here in the scripture. Now Hebrew scholars will debate about this. There is some debate, but literally this could be read in the Hebrew as dying, you shall die. And so there is a potential grammatical view here of seeing even two deaths right here in the command that God gives to Adam. And so There will be, as we'll see then, potentially here then, the way to understand that is a spiritual death, which was immediate, and a physical death, which comes due to its correspondence to the spiritual death, comes later. Verse chapter three, we then see that the man was given a woman, there's now two, and they have certain functions and they have a certain organization to them and their relationship, and they're getting along fine, we assume, and we see the introduction of verse one, a serpent who is desiring now to corrupt this. And how does the serpent function in verse one? He's more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? What is that doing? He is interjecting what? doubt. That's the card that Satan always wants to play. That anytime, and I tell high school kids this, especially college kids, you're going to get into a university system and you're going to be told that we cannot know things for certain. And you always need to be hopefully grounded scripturally enough that as soon as you hear that, you can identify that that's the blues. You know what I mean by the blues now? That's coming from the blue side, that you doubt, that you can't know things for certain. And that is indeed, especially in our generation and time, a place of great attack in the spiritual realm. Can you know? So here is an age-old question that's very much alive today. Did God really say that? Can you really know that? And he introduces his doubt. Well, the woman then uh... tries to contend with the serpent but of course she is not able to she is deceived we learn from scripture and in that deception she takes the fruit and she eats it and she gives it to her husband and he eats it and now we're looking at what happens as a result of that in verse seven genesis three the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings So what happens? They ate the fruit, and immediately they had an awareness of their nakedness to the point that they have to hide. And they try to cover their nakedness. Interestingly, the natural tendency of man, as a result of having sin now, is to cover. and to cover and hide his sin. And he does two very foolish things. He puts fig leaves over, trying to cover the nakedness. Now, do you think that's really going to work? And they hide, as we're going to see, from the Lord himself, an omniscient and all-knowing God. And of course, that's not really going to work. But again, clear thinking and rationality and things often get sacrificed when sin comes in, and we're driven by a sense of covering and protecting in our image. So verse 8, we see then that they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, the cool of day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. So notice he is afraid and covering and running. And boy, that is picturing us to a T, isn't it? Especially when we're in our sinful state. When you have a failure and a mistake in your Christian life even, even though you're saved, do we not often have fear? Fear of consequence, fear of what the Lord maybe is going to do if we don't understand that well, fear of what others might think. We have a tendency to cover. We want to try to make ourselves look good. That's exactly where we get this. What is this all an expression of? This is all an expression of death. You see the blues? You know, we've had that chart up there, right? The blues? The blues is all picturing death. Death, separation from God, that which is void of God's divine, perfect perspective, that which is dominated by human viewpoint, Satan's viewpoint, the world's viewpoint. And so they hide, they cover, they run, they're afraid. And this is all the fruit of death. You see, did they cease to exist, Adam and Eve? No. They're still functioning. They're still there. They're still physically talking. They're able to relate to God. They're able to respond to God. And this is a very important thing to grasp because if you know about Calvinism, I don't know how much you've, in your Gibbs, I don't know if you've encountered that yet, but you will be studying that. Lordship, salvation, Calvinism, that whole theology is based on a view of death. What is it? What is their view of death? The Calvinists, you should know this. How does a Calvinist define death? You're a Calvinist now, define death for me. Nobody knows. They define death as, they equate it like being physically dead. So spiritual death to them is being unable to even pray to God, to have a heart for God, to have any understanding of anything God says. Spiritual death to them is to be 100% null and void of any potential interaction with God at all. And that is what then necessitates their belief about faith. Now, what does a Calvinist say about faith? How do we get it? You know that. Very good. They then would say that faith is a gift that is given to you by God arbitrarily and by His sovereign choice. In order for you to exercise faith, though, in Him and what He's proclaimed and so forth, what precedes faith in a Calvinistic theology is life, the regeneration. So somewhere, from the Calvinist perspective, Mark Plymouth here is an unbeliever, but God has chosen him, and therefore he is regenerated and then given the gift of faith. And depending on who you talk to, some think it's almost instantaneous, he's regenerated and then believes, like boom, boom. Others say, oh, he could be regenerated but not believe for months or years. But anyway, that's open for question in large part because there's very scant biblical precedence for any of that. So their view of death then is that the unbeliever has no ability to believe. to respond to an offer of God of eternal life and putting faith in Him. No ability to comprehend the gospel message, no ability, no interest even, totally against and at odds with God in every way. But is that what we see in our first example, in our best picture of spiritual death in the Bible? We see, yes, there's fear, yes, there is a guilt consciousness and a covering, We see that, but they also responded, talked with the Lord. that was not ceased to exist or inability in any way to have any relationship with the Lord at all. So here we see, then, spiritual death is marked by this fear, by this hiding, and by this covering of religion. And the fig leaves really is just a picture of religion. And I find it fascinating because they probably spent quite a bit of time getting these fig leaves in order, finding the biggest ones and figuring out how to put them together, whatever. Can you just imagine, Adam and Eve? hectically putting this together, thinking all the time that they're doing this, that this was gonna be effective, they had hope in this, somehow this might, they might make it. But as soon as God is there in presence, what does Adam say? catch what he says this is this is man's faith and religion see that in Genesis 3 verse 8 they hid themselves from the presence the Lord verse 9 the Lord called to them and verse 10 he said I heard your voice and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself what about his fig leaves He doesn't even mention them, right? Totally abandons them. When it really comes where the rubber hits the road and you're now with the Lord, face to face, given an account there, all of your religion isn't even worth a breath. But while they were making the fig leaves, I'm sure it was important to them. So we see how fruitless All of that is their religion. Well, the Lord God then is a picture here of their separation from God, and this is a relational separation. They now have violated God's standards, and therefore there is a division between them. They did not cease to exist. They still existed, but what had occurred the moment they disobeyed God was a separation. And that is why if you have a small child, let's say you went out to dinner with your wife and you come home, there was a babysitter or whatever, but your child had decided to fill up his bed with buckets of water or something like that, done something, he's probably not waiting at the door. Can't wait till you come through the door, is he? Where is he probably? as you come home. He's probably far from the door, maybe even under his bed or whatever, but there's a separation there. There's an awareness that they've done wrong. So turn with me now as we think of the spiritual separation. There's a really graphic here that'll make it all clear. But that's the idea. We have a barrier. We have a separation between us and God. And Romans chapter 5, let's pit stop there as we're going to go to Ephesians 2. So turn to Romans 5. I bet I have it on the screen, though, so we'll look at it on the screen. But go to Ephesians 2, if you would. Ephesians 2, and as we turn there, notice what Romans 5 tells us. It says, therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, therefore death spread to all men because all sinned. And what this is saying is the consequences of Adam's choice, the consequences of this decision spread to everybody. all people. And the consequence of this death in Romans 5.12 in particular is physical death. And that physical death follows after the spiritual death. Adam and Eve encountered their sin, they have spiritual death in the garden, later they had physical death. And Romans 5.12 tells us that the consequence of that sin is now extended to every human being that is born. Sin always has a partner, and here we see the partner is death. The Bible makes it clear that we are born sinners as a result of Adam's sin. In Ephesians 2, verse 1, Paul says what? He says, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. Two things, you were made alive. What does that imply? You didn't have life. But he's not talking about physical birth here, is he? No, he's not. Obviously, he's talking about a spiritual birth. And the reason for the spiritual birth is because you already were in a condition of spiritual what? In fact, it says, verse 1, you were dead in trespasses and sins. This is Ephesians 2, 1, spiritual death. You are naturally born in Adam, separated from God. You do not have a relationship with him. There is a barrier between man and God. Man's holiness, excuse me, God's holiness and his purity and his moral righteousness is on one side and man's inconsistency and rebellion and his sin is on the other. Now speaking of this life you had before when you were in trespasses and sins, verse 2, You once walked according to the course of this world, that's the blue globe, according to the prince of the power of the air, just think of that chart and the blues there, and the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. That's what's behind all of this. Verse three, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, me first, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature then, by nature, physical birth, children of wrath, just as the others. So verses 1 through 3 portray our spiritual death. You see the life principle that was put in when God breathed into Adam, the spiritual part of that life principle was broken. when they ate the fruit. It's not replicating itself anymore. The physical life principle is, so we have physical people that are born, billions and billions of us, but the spiritual life principle was stopped. And therefore, we are all born in Adam. And in Adam, 1 Corinthians 15.22 tells us, all die. For your handout then, we can see spiritual death occurs at conception. We believe that this death, according to Psalm 51, when David says, I was born in sin and iniquity, my mother conceived me, would be a reference to the spiritual separation from God. There are Bible teachers that think it starts at physical birth. But the scriptures are, I think, are plenty that would imply that we are a person, we are identified, we are known of the Lord long before physical birth. So at conception we are this life principle of physical life begins and immediately spiritual death is associated with that because we're in Adam. The cause of it is we are in Adam. We are associated with Adam. He's our federal head. Romans is going to tell us that when Adam sinned, we all sinned. We all are held accountable for what Adam has done. And what is this then? This death is separation of the soul and the spirit from God. The soul, the spirit, really the body, all of it separated from God by way of relationship, by way of communion, by way of connectedness. We're not connected. What verses then can we see? We already looked at Genesis 2.17 and Ephesians 2.1-3. You could add more. You could add Colossians 2.13 there which says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. Paul says basically the same thing in Colossians 2.13 that he does in Ephesians 2. And obviously the implication of this is found in many verses like John 3.16. You can have, if you believe in him, you have everlasting life, which implies we lack that. So we have so many verses that are promises and offers of life that by implication clearly show that we have currently death. So what is the remedy of this spiritual death? And the remedy is to have spiritual life, to be born again, and to find ourselves given eternal life by way of a new spiritual birth. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ told Nicodemus in John chapter 3, the born again chapter, several times, you must be born again. You must be given life and the life principle that needs to start again inside you in the spiritual realm. That's the remedy. Chapter two, we're in Ephesians still. We just saw verse one through three, the blues. Let's begin to see the reds come in. Verse four, we see verse four. The first word is the word but. And I don't want to make the same mistake I heard one preacher say, that is the biggest but in the Bible. But it's a big one, showing a contradiction. Verses 1 and 3 showing, again, the natural state of man in our flesh, spiritually separated from God. Yet in spite of that, verse 4, God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. And so a word of hope, the verse 4, but God. In other words, in spite of ourselves. Where does this all start? Not with us. but with God. And here is God, who is, because of his richness and mercy and his great love with us, which he loved us. Two words we need to come to grips with then, his mercy and his love. This is how spiritual death is remedied. It starts with God. It starts with his mercy and his love. What is his mercy? And the way to understand mercy here is his pity and his compassion. That's what it means, merciful God. He looks upon us in a desperate, fallen state where we have nothing. And we, if anything, should repulse Him. but he's rich and mercy. What a picture of that is seen in Matthew in the parable of the unforgiving steward. You recall that story? How he was forgiven this great debt, and if he did some time to kind of compare denariuses and bring them into today's standards, this guy owed probably a billion dollars or more. and Matthew 8. He owed this gigantic sum, which would cause you to ask, how does anyone get in that kind of debt? But when you see that that's a picture of us, every time we have that lustful thought or we lose our temper or we say that white lie or we are unfaithful in some way to the Lord or whatever, guess what we're doing? We're accumulating that debt. This incomprehensible gigantic psalm in the Lord, it says, and the Master in the parable says, he had compassion. And that's it. I mean, apart from that sentence, that whole parable means nothing. Apart from chapter 2, the first few words of verse 4, Our eternal life, all the hope, means nothing. It's all in that compassion, that pity. In fact, the servant of Matthew 18, I should have turned there, but he said, have mercy on me, I'll pay it all. Which is just absolutely comical, if it wasn't so tragic. There's no way he could pay it all. It would have taken him, if you calculated it, like 250,000 years of labor. And that's working all the time and not spending any money on anything else. In other words, impossible. And you would think that the Master and the Lord would say, that's it. You disgust me, et cetera. But instead, he has pity. Like a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. Psalm 103. So this idea of mercy is where God looks at the impossible and the unlovable and the biggest mess and says, I want to fix that. And then we see verse 4, it's also His great love. As mercy and love again are partners. Like sin and death are partners, mercy and love are partners. And love is an expression of doing what is best for someone. And John 3, 16 reminds us that God so loves the world. that he will give his only begotten son. He so loves an expression of magnitude, of extent. And so this love is well beyond any proportion we can imagine. It's like a crazy love. I think I shared this once on camera where I shared what? It's a crazy love. Think of a pop star today. I know I'm a little outdated, but like Justin Bieber. When he was in his prime, the pre-teen girls or the young teen girls were screaming all over. Oh, Justin. And I'm sure that they all had this hope that somehow he was going to see them at the concert, and somehow a connection would be made, and somehow they'd get to meet, and somehow they'll be Mrs. Bieber some way someday. Right? Don't girls think this way? And it's this foolish love. If you could talk to him, you'd say, this is dumb. He doesn't even know who you are. He doesn't care one whit about you. This is dumb. And if we turn it around, we could say this is like God's love for the world. As God has this inexhaustible love that he goes to great depth and great cost and great sacrifice and sheds the sun, his own son pours out his soul on a cross for us. And you would say, but God, this is crazy. Most of these people will never acknowledge you. They don't care about you. They won't respond to you. But just like that foolish girl has that hopeless hope, that love, well, God has that same love for us, only it's not foolish, but it's radical. It blows your mind away. But that's how he loves you. That's how he loves us. He looks at our brokenness and our mess, and he says, I want to fix it. I'm going to do all that I can. I'm going to sacrifice and do what is best Kind of like Exodus 34, 6, when you see God as, remember those attributes? And so, he gives his son, in verse 4, his great love with which was loved us. How is it expressed? Verse 5, even when we were dead, in other words, incredibly in spite of our death and trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. And then we see by grace you have been saved. What do we see? The remedy to spiritual death is what? He gives us life. So there it is in verse five. There's your remedy. He gives you life. And this is by his grace. First there was mercy, then there's love, and then there's grace. As grace is really love in action. Now, to see that, go back to Romans 3. And in Romans 3, we see a great, again, I know you're well familiar with this passage, but what good news? You can never tire reading these things. In verse 23, we've all sinned, we see, we come short of the glory of God. Again, we see how we are not contributing anything good to the scenario. But verse 24, we are justified, declared righteous, freely, and that word is the idea without cause, this foolish, radical, crazy love of God. Without cause, there's nothing within us that stirs His love up toward us. And yet He loves us. But notice we're justified freely by His grace. And what is His grace connected to? The rest of the verse, the redemption that is in Christ. What does grace provide? The very basis for salvation, which is why Ephesians 2.8 says we are saved by Grace. Grace triggers the redemption. Christ coming. That is in Jesus Christ. We see verse 24 and 25. He's going to talk about the propitiation, the satisfactory payment of Christ. And all of this is by grace. And all of this is because of His love. And all of this is part of His mercy. grace that redeems. And so we see on the cross that Jesus Christ himself suffers death, that we were to suffer forever an eternal separation. He suffers the separation from God at Calvary where he has made sin for us, where God's justice is poured upon him. And as he dies in our place, we then through faith in that act can have life. We can go from spiritual death to spiritual life, eternal life, the moment we place our faith in Christ. This death of Christ, in Romans here, the redemption, the payment of Christ, the propitiation, et cetera, this is a death that leads to life. In fact, turn over to Romans 5, just a chapter later when he's explaining this again. Notice what he says about this. In verse 17, he says, if by the one man's offense death reigned, that is Adam, correct? Much more, those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense Judgment comes to all, resulting in condemnation. Even so, through one man's righteous act, and what is that? That's the death of Christ, to all men results in justification of life. Verse 18, one man's righteous act, his death leads to what? Life. Life for you and me. Life for anyone who will come to Him and receive it through one righteous act. His act, His crossword. And I love that verse because it really nullifies our righteousness, doesn't it? It's not our righteous acts, plural, accumulated to demonstrate our value. No. We're an atom. We're connected to the one act that brings condemnation. but through faith we can be underneath the act that brings life. Christ's death results in life. excuse me, sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ. So in Christ we have life. The remedy to spiritual death is to place your faith in Christ, to respond to what he has done for us in his righteous act, and his death leads to life. If you turn back one more verse, please, in John chapter 12, and I know, just hoping you're jotting some notes down just to help you understand, these things, but again, it's review, I'm sure, but hopefully we are still gleaning and still find encouragement as we review these truths. John chapter 12, verse 23, Jesus answered them saying, the hour has come that the son of man should be glorified, as this was just before he will be arrested the day before and he will be crucified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. What is he saying? He's saying that through my death, it'll produce much life. That's what he's saying. His righteous act will result in the reigning of life. And then he applies that before we get out of here thinking, ah, these are just salvation truths. He goes on in verse 25 and hits us hard right where we are today. He says, he who loves his life selfishly, me first, will lose it. And he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And if anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, my servant will also be. And so he reminds us that a life lived for self, you'll miss a lot of opportunities. A lot of opportunities to be where He is and to be with Him. You'll miss a lot of opportunities and there won't be much good that'll come from it. It'll be like the grain of sand, of wheat rather, that dies alone. But if you understand the principle here, Jesus is saying, and you follow after Him, even your life will lead to more life. Your life will lead to more good. as you take heed even to these kinds of things. And so death is associated with Adam, the blues. Life is associated with Christ and the reds. And a life lived in the blues, verse 25, doesn't amount to much. But a life lived in the reds, practically, can lead supernaturally, the Lord uses that, in many ways. So we're all made spiritually alive in Christ, which is why Jesus reminds us in John 5, 24, most assuredly, I say to you that he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life. When? Right now, the word has. Present tense. What did you do to get that? You didn't perform, did you? You put your trust in him. And you not only have as a present possession eternal life, but you have a promise of the future. You shall not come into judgment. Praise the Lord for that, huh? But, here's the fact, you have passed from death into life, written in the past as if it's already happened, you have in God's spiritual accountability records, have passed from the realm of death, you've been born again, you've come through the birth canal into spiritual life. and you have a birthday, and you have life, and you're a new creation. What's the remedy for spiritual death? The remedy is to get saved, and to then pass from judgment, from death, and into life. What a great promise when you believe in Jesus Christ. You will not come into condemnation. You have life, and this life is eternal. He didn't do anything for it. It's a gift received by faith in the righteous act of Christ. You were spiritually dead, but now you have been saved by grace through faith, as Ephesians 2 alluded to. Well, going pretty quick, aren't we? Spiritual death. We also have physical death. Physical death. And again, we just want to keep our distinctions, keeping these things distinct will help us better understand passages of scripture. The last verse of James chapter 2 provides a good description of physical death. 226, for as the body without the spirit is dead, He's going to say more. I guess we won't be looking at that right now. But as the body without the spirit is dead, that's exactly what Ecclesiastes 12.7, another verse you could reference there, that we looked at at the beginning. When the spirit goes back to the Lord who gave it. This is referring to a physical death. The Bible tells us the body without the spirit is dead. What is physical death? It's the separation of your soul and spirit from your body. And this occurs when you die. That's why when you go to a funeral or you see a death physically in our world, we know that the real person is no longer there, right? That person whom you knew and hopefully had a positive relationship with, that person is gone. their laughter, their personality, what they're really like. That person is gone, but their body remains. It's a shell. There was a separation. That's what physical death is. The soul, the spirit, the real them has physically been separated. And you and I are born to die because physical death is that which comes as a result of being in Adam. And we're all born in Adam by identity, by association. We are born in the realm of physical death. We will die. And that death will never be late. It's on target. You can't avoid it. It doesn't matter how much Hank has I'm going to say Hank Aaron. Sorry, I'm just trying to get old. Who's the country singer? Hank Williams. Hank Williams, I think it was actually junior, he said, no matter how I struggle and strive, I'm never getting out of this world alive. Brilliant truth, isn't it? So when does this occur? This is going to occur when you physically die, when you assume room temperature. What is the cause? The fall? The curse, being an atom, all of these things work together. This is our cause, our natural identity, our physical birth, our association with being an atom. So as a human being, that's the cause. And what is it? It's separation of the soul and of the spirit from the body. Now, it's interesting, because we just read Romans 5.12, which is going to tell us that as through one man, sin entered into the world, we saw earlier. And what? Death by sin. A very simple explanation of physical death, why it's coming. And it's interesting, because we sometimes traffic in these truths in our Bibles. And we just, hey, we read this a million times, OK. But we fail to realize that that verse and that concept that we see in our Bibles, you find nowhere else. The world is desperately searching for an answer to why do we die, because the reality of death is so obvious. But you realize that science can't explain why we die. Science explains the process of death. They can explain the physical responses and things that lead to it, but they can't reverse it because it's above their pay grade, I guess. Even other philosophies and even other religions deal with death in one way or another, explain certain things about it, Exactly why do we die? Why do we die? Hopefully you understand very clearly that many people don't fully understand. You know that we die because we're what? We're in Adam. And we die because it is the consequence of sin that entered into this world. And there's an association and a consequence that is upon every human being that answers that question, why will I die? It's a clear answer. And there's also a tremendous remedy, not for the physical death, but for the corresponding spiritual death and eternal death. Well, what verses also can we look at? Hebrews 9, 27. This is one that says, as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this, there's judgment. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those weaker the way for him will appear a second time in part for sin and for salvation. But what we're after is the beginning that says, it's appointed unto man to die once. And so we could use that scripture as well to say that this is a universal experience. We think of, what about Lazarus? Right? died and was resurrected by the Lord. And all we would say this is he certainly did die a final time after that. And so we would have to assume, since there's no real verses elsewhere that we can count on, we'd have to assume that that death was somehow different so that it's not qualifying as his final, ultimate death. So for the purposes of God and for the purposes of the miracle, for whatever there was associated with that act, he's going to form some form of an exception. But we generally then would know that this verse is going to state a truth that we know too well from personal experience and from history. We're all going to die. And it's going to happen. And we can't stop it. and science has never figured it out. It's coming because of the curse, because of sin, because of what happened in a garden 6,000 years ago, and yet you would answer that way and you'd have people that will start howling with laughter and saying, what a bunch of morons, right? And yet they have no better explanation. This one makes perfect sense. Well, what's the remedy? Well, there really isn't one, unless you happen to be in the rapture generation. As we know, there is a generation coming sometime in the future, in the history of Earth, where at that appointed time, the Lord will return, and the theological truth that you've learned in a previous distinctions class on the rapture, that'll occur, and those who are alive will be caught up with the Lord. So? that you can avoid physical death that way. The other way is you can realize that the remedy is for the believer that when you do die, it's a temporary sleep. In fact, the New Testament several times uses the euphemism sleep for the believer, showing that it doesn't have its final bite. For the believer, it's a temporary rest. So what happens to the soul of the believer 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8, we read, we are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. So here we see a very blessed truth that for the believer, when you are no longer in your physical body and you have physically died, where is your soul and where do you go? You are present with the Lord, awaiting then a bodily resurrection that will occur again at the rapture. So that's a great truth. When one dies, that's why we can obviously say that they are with the Lord. And we don't say it just casually. It's funny, whenever celebrities die, we often say, oh, they're smiling down from us at heaven. When Robin Williams died or Joan Rivers died, they're laughing and smiling, and heaven's a better place, and they're looking up. We put them in heaven, but we put everyone in heaven in that sense, don't we? What we do know is for a believer that there is no doubt. For a believer in Christ and one who has trusted in Christ, not saying the others, I have no idea where the others, what they believed in, but for the believer in Christ, when you know someone who's trusted in Christ, what do you know for sure? You know for sure, not just kind of hoping or just saying it as a quip, but you know it with certainty, that they're in heaven and they're with the Lord and they're enjoying that. As Jesus even said in John chapter 14, he's going to leave this earth, as he was saying to his disciples just before he was arrested, and I will go, I go to prepare a place for you that where I am you may also be. So what happens to the body of the believer though? When a believer in Christ dies physically, their body remains. The body of the believer then is what we would call sleeps or awaits its ultimate resurrection. A resurrection where the new body fit for eternity will be then connected with the new soul and spirit that's already in you physically. The life that's in you now spiritually that the Lord has given you as he's given you eternal life, you don't wait for it, you have it now. And that resurrection life is in you right now, the same life that'll be in you forever. The difference will be on the other side of eternity, it'll be deposited into a body that's perfect and glorified. So, you're waiting. The believer that has passed on is waiting for that resurrection and that reunion of their body, new body however, with their soul and spirit. Remember, the Lord, he knew that Lazarus, he was told that Lazarus was sick in John chapter, I think it's 12. And he waited several days before he went. And the disciples were getting agitated. Hey, he's sick. Why don't we go? And Jesus had to then plainly tell them, well, no, actually he has died. But don't worry, because Lazarus is asleep, the word that Jesus used. He's asleep. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 is the passage we look at that says, regarding this topic, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, Paul writes, concerning those who have fallen asleep. As you know, that is not a reference to people who are sleeping during a sermon, but that is a reference to those who have died. lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who, again, sleep in Jesus. That's a term for the believer who has passed, physically has died. What part of the believer has fallen asleep? What part of the believer will Jesus bring with him? Later in 1 Thessalonians 4 we read, This we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." What part of the believer will rise first? We read the body. The physical body. Jesus Christ will be bringing the souls of dead believers with him to be reunited with their physical bodies, which, as we've seen, are described as being asleep. And they will be then put together in a glorified state. There is a generation of believers, however, who will not experience this, right? As we mentioned earlier, they are the raptured generation, those who will be alive when this event occurs physically, but they will also rise and receive a new body along with all of those who have previously passed. That's why he says in the next verse, "...then those who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord." All church-age believers will experience the rapture, as we know, but most, of course the vast majority, will be in the category of returning with the Lord to meet their body in the air. But one group, one small group, one generation, will be going the other direction, upward, meeting the Lord in the air. The New Testament never uses the word sleep in reference to the death of an unbeliever. So just note that. When you see these passages, you see the word sleep and this euphemism made, it's always in reference to someone who is saved. Never will you see that to an unbeliever, which brings our next point. And that is the seven deaths of scripture. We are looking now at the third death. The first two were spiritual death, true of everybody who's born physically in Adam. Because we're in Adam, we're separated from God. We don't have eternal life. We don't have life, spiritual life. The second death was physical death, which is a result of being in Adam as well. It's the extended consequence of being in Adam. We all will physically die unless we're in that raptured generation. But physical death, the remedy, is when you're saved, it's called sleep. Now we see our third death, the eternal death. This is one we don't like to talk about a whole lot. This is one that certainly is unpopular in our day and age. Because you see, in the case of unbelievers, the moment that they die physically, they are going to be experiencing an eventual eternal death. They're assigned to a place called Hades, where they await the great white throne judgment. But at that great white throne judgment, their name will not be found in the book of life. And they will then suffer for eternity, a separation from God. Now, the Lord Jesus gave us a sneak preview of this. So let's turn, if you will, to Matthew 25, in your Bible, Matthew 25. We've got two passages, lengthy passages here. And again, it's just good for you not only to be reminded of these things, but again, to learn them in even a more chronological or technical way so that you have these things in you in a sense of answering questions or keeping things straightened. Because again, these distinctions are very, very helpful in keeping theology straight. In Matthew 5, we see Jesus giving us an explanation of future events, and verse 32 will begin. Verse 31, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. Now notice, where is that throne located? Physically, we see when the Son of Man comes in His glory, this throne is where? On the earth. So we see verse 31, then, we are on the earth. This is dealing with the revelation of Christ, the return of him, not the rapture. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his left hand, but the goats... I'll get this right. He'll set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And so the language here is kingdom language. He says, verse 35, I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. And I was naked, and you clothed me. And I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then the righteous, will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give you drink? When did we see you as a stranger, and take you in, or naked, and clothe you? When did we do all this? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. The brethren here of the Lord would be the Jews, the Jewish people. And so he is saying that a benchmark of one's spiritual condition is how they view and treat the chosen Jewish people. And so these people that are considered, they're called the righteous in verse 37. They are the sheep and they are commended and they are then invited to enter into the kingdom that's been prepared. And their righteousness is displayed by their attitude and treatment of the Jews. Well, now we see in verse 41, the second part. Then he will say to those on his left hand, depart from me. That is called separation. You cursed into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. And I was a stranger, and you did not take me in naked, and you did not clothe me sick. And in prison, and you did not visit me. And they will protest, they will answer and say, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick in the prison and did not minister to you? And he will answer them saying, assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, his brethren, you did not do it to me. And the consequence, verse 46, these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous unto eternal life. So he tells those on the left, the ones who have rejected Christ, they will go away. Separation. And this is an everlasting separation. And it's not described politely. It's described as punishment. And it's called eternal separation or eternal death theologically. But the righteous, on the other hand, will be invited to a kingdom and everlasting life. So this separation clearly from this passage we see is what? It's forever. It's eternal. And it is a separation then, going away, depart from me forever, those who rejected Christ. In this case, it was seen in action as those who rejected even his brethren. Again, that would be showing their spiritual condition. Well, if you turn with me to 2 Thessalonians, We will stop there for a minute before we go to Revelation. Actually, I'm going to just pause on that. Sorry. Let's just go to Revelation first. Revelation chapter 20, which is the next in the notes here. Sorry about that. Revelation chapter 20, this is the, again, one of the defining passages that's gonna explain to us the central passage, I should say, eternal death. And we pick it up in chapter 20, we see in John's chronology of the book of Revelation that the king has returned and he has been, chapter 19, he has already defeated the armies of the world. And so we see this is after his kingdom even now because of the reference to the thousand years. Verse 7, chapter 20, when the thousand years have expired. So we see this thousand year kingdom that will be on earth. Then we'll see a final rebellion. Satan will be released from his prison. And we'll see in verse 10, the devil who deceived them will be cast into a lake of fire. Then we get to verse 11. And again, we're after the thousand years. He says, I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God. And books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. This would be the unsaved dead who had physically died. And death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works. And then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. And this is the second death. Second death here is a phrase, eternal death is the idea. So the eternal death and the second death are referring to the same thing. Why are they cast into that second death? Verse 15, anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. If they had not responded by faith to the things of Christ, if they had not put their faith in Him, they are not found in the book of life. Not being in the book of life will cost you eternity. It is a second death, a final death, an eternal death that occurs in the lake of fire, a place of judgment reserved for those who do not know Him. And so it is indeed very serious. This is indeed the reason why there would be urgency in our evangelism and our message. Not that we want to go around and scare people in such a way that they don't listen to us and they think we're kooks. There's wisdom that's needed there. There is timing that is of the Lord there. There is methods that the Lord and His ways can provide. But in our heart and our understanding, if we don't see this as a reality, we will become dull in terms of having a vision for the lost around us. The Lord wants us to see that there is a very real end, as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 73, a very real end and it's eternal, and it's in the lake of fire. And this is, other passages in the scripture that don't mix words here, it is a very unpleasant place. So we see then, the second death is this eternal death for those who are not found in the lake of fire. When does this occur? Eternal death is already in place. at physical death and will last forever. We'll see that there is a place you go for a thousand years in Hades. But after that, death in Hades we see in Revelation 20 will give up the dead who were in it. And those who were in the Hades holding area, they will then have their day of court before the Lord Jesus Christ. And they will be found without their name in the book of life. What is the cause of this death? You died physically. apart from faith in Jesus Christ. And what does that mean? That means you died physically apart from faith in Jesus Christ. It means that your name was not found in the book of life. So you had your time on earth and you did not respond to whatever truth or revelation you were allowed to have or you were fortunate to have. You did not respond to grace. You see, we see right in this passage, the battle of the ages is grace versus works. They will be judged, we see in Revelation 20, based on their works. This is not, were you good enough to get in? This is, were your works acceptable to the Lord? And we will tend to think that we will have some sort of basis to make a case or to say that, Lord, you should allow me in. as people will trust then in their works, whatever they may be, but they will then be found to be of the blues, if you know what I mean, the chart, right? It'll all be shown to be coming from the blues. And God will say, I cannot accept that. That was not truly done as unto me. That was done as unto yourself. As God can evaluate those motives, we can't. But God can evaluate those fairly and rightly, and He will say, I never knew you. As Matthew 7 also gives us a glimpse of this. So works will be presented and some day in court will be given and they will get their hearing, but of course it'll be found unacceptable and the overriding principle is their name was not found in the book of life. So that is the cause of it. It is separation then of all that you are from God forever. Separation from all that you are, meaning your body and your soul and your spirit, you will be separated for eternity. And again, some like to question, is this really going to be for eternity? And yet, we just saw in Matthew chapter 25, that this is indeed for eternity. And that's where I would now go to 2 Thessalonians 1, if you will. 2 Thessalonians 1. And just again, a very blatant reminder from Paul here of what is in store and awaiting those who will die without Christ. He talks about, in verse 4, how they were boasting of the Thessalonians among the churches of God because of their patience and their faith. They also went through many persecutions and tribulations they had to endure. And regarding those persecutions and tribulations, it's manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God. You can be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, which you also suffer, as you've taken it in the neck for Christ. since it's a righteous thing, verse 6, with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. There will be a day of reckoning and a straightening of accounts. And verse 7, he will give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels. And then, in flaming fire, by the way, this is a reference to Revelation 19 and 20, the stage of history at the revelation of Christ and flaming fire he will take vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and we know you obey that Romans 10 by faith these shall be punished with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day to be glorified and His saints, and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed." So there you see the issue is one of believing. And when you are in that day, and of those of faith, you will admire the Lord. You will admire His incredible omnipotence and who He is. However, there will be many who will be greatly fearful. because this is a day that punishment and everlasting destruction, verse 9, and everlasting separation from the presence of the Lord will take place. So that's what it is. It's not a good thing. Verses, again, Matthew 25, 46, Revelation 20, 14, we've seen. You could add to that 2 Thessalonians 1. What is the remedy? Well, just like the others, it's salvation and eternal life. Put in your trust, of course, in the message of Jesus Christ and the gospel. And that's why those of us, we are saved, we have this life, we enjoy this life. We enjoy this Savior. We enjoy the fact that this does not await us, but instead what awaits us is absent from the body, is present with the Lord. And in light of us having it so good, and having these kind of truths behind us, may that stimulate our desire not to unwisely go around like a crackpot, and say, don't go to hell, don't go to hell, but to wisely, as the Lord leads, have a vision and a view and a desire to share the gospel where he allows. Well, let's have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you. This was a heavy subject. These are not real polite or fun topics on one side, but they're delightful on the other side if we know that we have life and we are saved and we're spared. So thank you, Father, first for eternal life so free. Thank you, Father, we have just so much that we blatantly do not deserve. Thank you, Father, you treat us in this grace that we will have eternity and will not be enough to thank you for your goodness. So we just want to worship you there and take what you've proclaimed and worship you and even praise you for it. At the same time, may we believe it so that you also can cause us to be mindful of the lost around us and of the great need for people to hear, for people to see your goodness and your grace. So may we have opportunities, Father, even this week to share the good news. May we be motivated in light of what we're hearing.