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If you're on the church's email,
received an email during the course of the week, Thursday,
Friday, I believe, that I intended to try to preach
four sermons, a series of four sermons on the subject of individual
eschatology now through the fourth Sunday in October. Eschatology
is derived from two words, eschatos, which means last or end, and
the word logos, which means word. So we have the last word, eschatology. So eschatology is the study or
the word about the last things or end times in the light of
scripture, the word of God. It's customary to divide the
study of eschatology into two major parts. There is the future
of the individual, which is called individual eschatology, and that
covers topics like death, immortality, the intermediate state, and some
other topics. And the other part of eschatology,
sometimes referred to as general eschatology or cosmic eschatology,
covers such topics as Christ's return, the part that's usually
the most sensationalized, the millennium, the final judgment,
and then the final state. If you look at our confession
of faith, the 1689 Baptist Confession, you notice chapters 31 and chapter
32. Chapters 31 and 32, you will
notice it follows generally this order that I just mentioned of
personal or individual and cosmic eschatology and its general headings. Now, this twofold division in
eschatology as you study it. It's generally laid out this
way in most systematic theologies, in most studies of theology.
This twofold division of eschatology may seem somewhat artificial,
and it may be somewhat imposed as you think about it and as
you engage in the study. And it's certainly somewhat overlapping
as you get into the study, but it's useful and it's pastoral. It's useful and it's pastoral
in that it focuses one's attention on eternity and on eternal matters. And it addresses sincere questions
that are often raised by believers, questions that you find asked
and answered in various Pauline epistles and other places in
the Bible for that matter. I recently noted, it's been,
I don't know, a while back, and it changes daily, I think, but
I recently noted 17 sermons that were listed on the front page
of Sermon Audio. And according to the titles,
and I'm only going by the titles, I didn't listen to the messages,
but according to the titles of those 17 sermons, two were about
eternity. So that would be 12% of those
sermons on the front page. 15 were about other issues. That
would be 88% of them. Titles like duty, honor Christ. That was a title of a sermon.
Or what is man? That was a title. When do we
get the Holy Spirit or God's church manual? Those were titles. Now, I'm not suggesting that
these other sermons were not needed, nor am I suggesting they
were unbiblical. That's not what I'm saying. I'm
just simply saying, by title at least, they were not about
eternal issues. And I will state that many, if
not most sermons, are how-to or you-need-to sermons. Like,
how-to or you-need-to improve your marriage. or how to or you
need to live debt-free, or how to or you need to control your
temper or your fear or your timidity or whatever it may be, or how
to or you need to live like a Christian. That's the general tenor of many,
if not most sermons. Now, again, such sermons surely
are important, not negating. such topics and such sermons. But when the preponderance of
sermons are on that type of subject, it certainly lends itself to
viewing Christianity as a self-help religion will be the outcome. And that's really where Christianity
is often viewed, particularly when Christianity and is at its
very core and its very nature about eternal matters. And in
fact, as I was recently and already begun studying and thinking about
this a little while back, and I was in the shop one day and
I had a ref net on and R.C. Sproul was preaching and he asked
a question. He said, when was the last time
you heard a sermon on heaven? And I thought, that just fits
right into what I'm thinking, saying, working on. He says,
you never hear sermons on that. And we should. I was going, amen,
brother. We should. Because again, when
the preponderance of sermons, 88%, 90% more, are on other issues,
it lends It lends the thinking to a bootstrap
type of religion, bootstrap yourself up rather than grace. And when that is the majority,
I would say that pastorally, we fail congregations. We fail congregations in that
we fail to focus minds and hearts on Christ and eternity. Colossians 3, verses 2 and 3,
set your minds on things that are above, not on things that
are on earth. For you have died and your life
is hidden with Christ in God. Set your mind on things above. And we also fail by not comforting
as we should and answering important questions. We most often hear
read at funerals and graves, 1 Thessalonians 4.18, therefore
encourage one another with these words. Well, Paul has just written
those words after explaining about the resurrection. But we
don't really often explain those words. enough. Let me offer a
couple of helpful principles. I think pastors, and I say this
to myself, I say this to Pastor John, I say this to the intern,
I say this to other men who may be thinking in those ways, pastors
are teachers in the future. Pastors are obligated to provide
biblical answers to difficult questions. We're obligated. Questions like, what happens
at death? Does the soul sleep? What will
heaven be like? Will we know one another in heaven? Because the Bible responds to
questions like that. And let me offer another helpful
principle. Pastors primarily counsel from
here, the pulpit. Our primary point of counseling
is here, corporate worship, Lord's Day. Right now, in these venues, In other words, if a person,
a part of the congregation goes, I don't know, I haven't heard,
it might be because they haven't availed themselves of the opportunity
of the teaching. It's this venue, Bible study
Pastor John mentioned, these times that we do our primary
counseling. You know, we talk about Calvin,
we talk about Sproul, we talk about some of the, you go to
look on my library shelves, I have some of the great works of some
of the great men in the history of the church. You know where
most of those works were done? Their sermons. Their sermons. They didn't do that on the side
somewhere else, their sermons. And we've gotten out of that
somehow in our culture. That's where our primary work,
our primary counseling is done is now, here, in this format. So those listening somewhere
else in some other time, or you share it with them, this is where
we do our primary teaching. Well, in our recent past at EBC,
death has been a frequent unwelcome visitor. I think Pastor John
mentioned recently in 2021, there's been like five deaths in our
church family. I look back since our inception,
there's been many, many deaths among us here. I think of other
Reformed Baptist churches that we know, excuse me, here in Georgia, and we just
were gagged at one time. And there were brothers that
they were having their first funeral. I'm going, what? Gracious.
Yeah, let me show you something. I have volumes of sermons I've
preached, funeral sermons I've preached. And they're like, this
is my first or my second. Of course, we're an older congregation. And as one grows older, death
becomes more familiar and becomes more imminent. And it does so
through increasing deaths of friends and family. And as this
happens, it's normal to think more about it, to think about
eternity. And so there's a lot of things
that sort of lead my mind to a series of messages. So over
the next four weeks, what I want to do is following that basic
division that I've given you on eschatology. of individual
and cosmic eschatology, a very sweeping series. It has to be. There's going to
be a lot of things left unsaid. I'd like for us to think about
one, death, two, the intermediate state, three, the resurrection,
judgment, and four, heaven and eternity. And so in light of
that, thinking about that, I've had this book for quite a while.
I think Steve Martin gave Gil and me this book. It's called
Nearing Home. And it's a Comforts and Councils
for the Aged. Tells what Steve thinks of us.
But it is, of course, it has some poems in it, but it's a
book with a lot of great writers in it. Horatio Bonar. Let me see, I said that. James Alexander, if you're familiar
with him. It has, of course, it has some
poetry in it. Archibald Alexander. I'm looking
for some other names you might know, John Newton, James Montgomery,
Isaac Watts. These are named, I think, Horatio,
I've already said Horatio Barnard, Philip Doddridge. Anyhow, it
has both some poetry, but then it also has articles in it. And
so in anticipation, of this, that's my copy there. You can't
have that one. But I ordered four of these. They're paperback, hardbacks
were ridiculous. But I ordered four of those if
you want to copy them. They're about, I think, $20 a
copy. The cost of it was like $18 a piece, something like that,
to get them here. So I have four of them up here. If we run out,
I can get some more. So today our subject is deaf. That's not
a popular subject, is it? Wow. But I want to look at what
is death, what are the calls or causes of death, and why do
Christians die? If my sins have been forgiven
and there is no condemnation now, if I am justified now, why
do I die? Those are my three questions
I want us to entertain. With that in mind, please open
your Bible to Genesis chapter two. And we read verses 15 through
17. And you can just keep your Bibles
open to Genesis 2. I'll go ahead and read some other
passages here in Genesis. Genesis chapter 2, verse 15. The Lord God took the man and
put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the
Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree
of the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you
eat of it, you shall surely die. And look over to chapter three,
verse 17. Well, let's just go on down to
verse 19. Genesis 3, 19, where God is now
pronouncing the sentence By the sweat or the indictment,
perhaps we would say by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread
till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken
for you are dust. And to dust you shall return. And then we go to Genesis five
and we read verse five. Thus, all the days that Adam
lived were 930 years, and he died. Let's pray. Father, we do pray for your mercy,
your blessings, your enlightenment, your guidance, your help, your
presence, as we consider what your word says about this Great
subject that we often shun and steer away from. Give us understanding. And may the word of God be clear
to us. And may it not just be information. May we not just go away saying,
gee, I learned something I never thought of before. But may that
information be transforming as we think and live and have our
being. And may it cause us to think about you and to look
upward and to think about eternal matters. I ask in Christ's holy
name, amen. So we begin with the first question,
what is death? I can answer that, give you the
medical and legal answer from the American Medical Association,
the American Bar Association. And their answer is the permanent
cessation of all vital bodily functions. Bodily, that's both
the medical and the American Bar. And the bodily functions
are defined as a absence of spontaneous respiratory and cardiac functions. So that is their definition.
The ethical answer is a little different. It's an irreversible
cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the
brainstem. Now, these answers are useful,
certainly, but they lack, they are lacking And I found it interesting,
and given an answer to this, I went back to the 18th century
Baptist theologian John Gill. And in reading John Gill, I could
read a lot, and he had a lot to say in his systematic, but
just this little thought, he says, but what it is, what death
is, is chiefly to be known from the scriptures. So I don't need
to go to the American Bar or the American Medical. That's
good. Those definitions are helpful. But I want to go to the scriptures
to see what it is and how it's defined. So I want to define
it objectively. And I do that, when I say objectively,
I mean, I want to define it here again in a legal sense, but not
in the American bar, but in God's legal sense in scripture, legal
sense. And death is stated to be punishment
for breaking God's specific commandment. Go back to Genesis where we were.
In Genesis 2, verses 8 through 17 is a record of the Garden
of Eden, of the fact of its origin, of its placement, and of man's
placement in it and his labor in it. Verse eight, God plants
a garden and he puts man in the garden. He planted the garden
in Eden in the east. And that's interesting even in
our closing hymn today. A day is dying in the east, but
there's something coming up, excuse me, in the west and something
coming up in the east. The tabernacle, which way did
it face? The temple, which way did it face? You didn't know
all these things. But here it's the East, and that's something,
a theme that's followed throughout the scripture. You get into the
metanarratives, well, here's one. It starts right here in
Genesis 2, verse 8. And there he put man who informed,
and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree
that's pleasant, and so on. And it gives us the definition,
excuse me, the location of where the garden was. In verse 15,
Lord God took the man, He put him in the garden to work it
and to keep it. And some get into the idea that
that means that there must be some protection of it because
we find out in three, there is a serpent that comes here. So
whatever that may mean, but man is there to work it and to keep
it. Work proceeds to fall. God then gives man Verse 15,
he gives man a general order to work and keep the garden.
In verse 17, the Lord God gives man a specific commandment, and
that specific commandment is that he shall not eat of the
fruit of one given tree. And also with that specific commandment
comes a very specific punishment if he does. If you eat it, And
the day that you eat it, you will surely die. So this commandment
and this punishment are known. Chapter two, verse 16, God commands
Adam and he states the commandment and he states the punishment.
Chapter three, verse one, the serpent is more crafty than any
other beast. When he speaks to Eve, he perverts
the commandment, but he knows it. He perverted it, but he knows
it. Eve, in chapter 3, verse 3, repeats
the commandment. Perhaps she embellishes it. Maybe
Adam did that when he's telling her, you can't eat this tree. Maybe he goes so far and says,
well, you don't even touch it. I don't know. But she adds to
it a little bit. You can't even touch it. But
she knows the commandment, and she knows the punishment if she
breaks the commandment. So it's not something hidden.
It's not something they do not know. And then in chapter three,
verse 19, we have the pronouncement, the indictment pronounced again,
after they have eaten, after they have broken the specific
commandment, God pronounces the indictment, by the sweat of your
face, you shall eat bread to the ground, you return to the
ground for your dust and you'll return to the dust. And then
of course, in chapter five, verse five, the sentence is executed.
Adam lived these many years and then he died. Now you read all
this and it's, I read this and it reminds me of going, when
you're traveling, I just came off of a long trip, a lot of
several thousands of miles and we saw this over and over. So
you're traveling somewhere and you see these, they're working
on the highways. And before you get to the actual
construction site, there'll be signs, construction work ahead. Speeding fines doubled. And there'll
be signs. And then there'll be flashing
lights. And then there'll be cones. And as you get closer,
a lot of times they'll have vehicles parked. with flashing lights,
nobody in them that sometimes there should be vehicles sitting
there with flashing lights. And they'll have all kinds of
warning lights, all kinds of signs, all kinds of indicators
that there is construction ahead. And this will go on for a long
ways before you get to the actual construction. Sometimes you'll
wonder, where are the workers? But finally, you'll get there.
And then you'll come out and you have a sign. And if you went
through that construction site, just zipping through there and
you got pulled over for speeding, and you go, well, I didn't know. You couldn't plead ignorance.
Because I mean, it has warning after warning after warning after
warning. So you read this and you go, well, God told them. It's posted. He said it. They
knew it. It's repeated, I mean, it's very
clear. And so you find this repetition, it's not that God's repeating
it so much, but you find this repetition as you read in Genesis
2, Genesis 3. Here it goes, it's warning flashing
all the way through this. Adam knows it, Eve knows it,
serpent knows it, it's known. Don't do this. The point here. And it is an
essential biblical truth, and that is that death is a penal
evil. It's a curse. It is a curse. It is a punishment for the violation
of a specific commandment. Adam deliberately disobeyed God. God imposed on him the death
sentence for his deliberate disobedience. Now, there may be many instrumental
causes we think of today for death. Sin is the... We merit death because of sin,
we can say that, but God is the immediate cause. Death is the penalty imposed
by God for disobedience, for sin. Adam is the federal head of humanity.
And the guilt, the judicial obligation to satisfy justice, the guilt
of Adam's sin has been imputed, it's been placed upon all of
humanity, and that leads to death. Romans 5, 12 says, therefore,
just as sin came into the world through one man and death through
sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. And you
read on through Romans 5, and that's one of the most classic
passages that talk about how Adam is our federal head and
the result of Adam's sin is death upon all humanity. 1 Corinthians
15 makes the same point, verses 21 and 22. For as by a man came
death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Adam sinned, and the result of Adam's sin was his death, and
that death then is imposed upon all of humanity. Have you ever
wondered why infants die? I have, of course, I've had to
deal with that. I have a brother that was an infant when he died,
but also as a pastor, I've had to deal with it. Perhaps you've
dealt with that. Why? They're not guilty of personal
sin in the sense that they've committed actual sin. No, they're
not. Why? Is God unjust? Is God unjust? If the penalty of sin is death,
then how can an infant die? How's that come about? When you go back to this and
you understand total depravity, and you understand that we are
the children of Adam, and sin is the result of sin is death. And Adam is our federal head
of all humanity. And his sin has been imputed
to all humanity. And because of one man's sin,
death reigns. God would not be just to execute
penalty upon the innocent. They don't have their own actual
sin, but they have Adam's guilt. And that's why we say it's not
just enough to have the active obedience. We must have the passive
obedience of Christ. Christ both kept the law. He
kept the law. He kept every jot and tittle
of the law, and he died on the cross. He did both. We must have
both the active obedience of Christ and the passive obedience.
He is the spotless lamb of God. And he kept the law of God. The point here is that death
is not the result of natural law. And there have been theologians
that have said that, by the way, and that is the and that's part
of the thinking that always is part of the life cycle. It's not. Death is an obscene, grotesque
contradiction of life. It is a mortal enemy. I like to take the Psalms of
imprecation and put death in the Psalms of imprecation. Let
me give you an example I'll talk about. Psalm 69, verse 24 and
following. If you don't know what a psalm
of imprecation is, it's a psalm of curse. It's cursing one's
enemy. Because death, it's an enemy. It's not part of the natural
order. So here's what I do. I've done
this. I have faced this enemy at times. Psalm 69, pour out your indignation
upon, speaking to the Lord, pour out your indignation upon death
and let your burning anger overtake it. May it can't be desolation. May it have no acquittal from
you. Let death be blotted out of the book of the living. Let
it not be enrolled among the righteous. Or Psalm 56, Oh God, break death's teeth in its mouth. Tear out its fangs. Oh Lord,
let it vanquish like water that runs away when he aims his arrows. Let them be blunted. Let death
be like the snail that dissolves into slime. Death is an expression and a
result of divine anger. Psalm 90 verse 7, for we are
brought to an end by your anger. It's judgment, Romans 1 32, though
they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve
to die. It's condemnation, Romans 5 16,
for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation. It's a curse. Galatians 313 Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law. What's the curse of
the law? Death. It cannot be avoided. It cannot
be cured by man's devices. It is not natural. It's not in
the DNA. It's not genetic. It can't be
fixed. It cannot be avoided. It's not
natural. It's penal. And we do not look
to medicine, we do not look to the law, we do not look to doctors,
we do not look to science, we do not look to cryogenics. These
do not hold the answers. Because that is not its origin.
Because it is the result of a direct disobedience of man to a direct
commandment of God. It's penal. Therefore, only God is the answer. And then, by the way, my friends,
talk about worldviews. Pastor John mentioned in Bible
study, there is a worldview clash right there. Biblical worldview
versus a non-biblical worldview. A Christian worldview versus
many, many other religions worldview. Bam, right here. We go on. Subjectively, personally,
death is a separation, it's a rending, it's a dissolution. Genesis 217,
we want to consider the statement, for in the day that you eat of
it, you shall surely die. In the day. Now, this is the first reference
in the Bible to death. The verb die in the Hebrew is
muth. Anthony Hokema writes, the obvious and primary meaning
is to die a physical death. In Vine's Dictionary, Expository Dictionary of the
Old and New Testament, we read this verb occurs in all Semitic
languages, including biblical Aramaic from the earliest times
and in Egyptian. The verb occurs about 850 times
in biblical Hebrew and in all periods. Essentially, the verb
means to lose one's life. The word is used a physical death
with reference to both man and beast. Genesis 5.5 records that
Adam lived 930 years and he died. Jacob explains to Esau that were
his livestock to be driven too hard, too fast, The young among
them would die, Genesis 33, 13, and on and on, the verb is so
used. Now, Genesis 3, 19, the penalty
is pronounced. And so if we have a question
about, is it being physical here? Look at the penalty that's pronounced
in Genesis 3, 19. He says, for you are dust, and
to dust you shall return. Now, that's physical. That's
what's being used. Then in chapter five, verse five,
we see that Adam lived 930 years and he died. And so does everyone
else in this chapter. This is the descendants of Adam. This is the book of mankind and
it's true of all of us. Now, What's the explanation? We've
got this conflict, it seems like. He says, God said, in the day
that you meet, you will die. Let me give you a couple of possibles.
Herman Bovink, a Dutch theologian, says that Adam's death was postponed
because of God's common grace. Common grace means that grace
that God has on all of humanity, the rain, and the sun come on
the just and the unjust, that's common grace. So he says that
because of God's common grace, he postponed his death 930 years. Johannes Vos, a Dutch American,
not a Dutch, says that in the day is a Hebrew idiom that means
as surely as you eat of it. And he cites 1 Kings 2.37, where
Solomon says to Shimei, for on the day that you go out and cross
the book Kidron, know for certain that you shall die. And he also
cites Exodus 10.28, where Pharaoh says to Moses, on the day you
see my face, you shall die. And there's other passages that
are used this way. So, Vos is saying that it's an idiom that
means, as surely as. that as surely as you eat this,
you will die. Like we would say, he's as good
as his word, you can take it to the bank, those are idioms.
So in the day that you do this, it means as surely as you do
this. Others say that it means spiritual
death. Well, I'm not gonna say it doesn't,
but that overlooks 319. In 319 is where God said, you're
dust. And this is where he is pronouncing
the indictment. And if you're gonna say it's
spiritual, then why does he say you're dust? And you're going back to
dust. That's to overlook that passage.
So it's more than just spiritual. It includes physical. Now, Anthony Hokema, I've already
quoted him, another good Dutch theologian, says, excuse me,
in the light of the rest of scripture, and this is where you begin to
look at all of scripture. You don't just take one thing
and begin to look at all of it. In the rest of scripture, however,
death is here threatened, must be understood as meaning more
than just physical death. And I think all of these that
I've just quoted, Bob Akevoss and Huckam would all come here.
It means more than just physical death. Man is a totality. With
a spiritual side to his being as well as a physical. So when
we answer the question, what is death? The Bible would say
the Bible responds. There's three times. There's
three kinds of death. There's physical death. Romans
623. For the wages of sin is death,
and that is a mortal enemy that we all must face. It is the last
enemy that Christ will vanquish. Their spiritual death. Ephesians
2, 1, and you were dead in the trespasses of your sins. And
that is those who are separated from Christ and do not have God
as their father are dead in their transgressions and their sins.
And everybody born into this world is born in that state.
And then there is the second or eternal death, Revelation
20, verses 14 and 15. Then death and Hades were thrown
into the lake of fire. This is the second death. The
Lake of Fire, and if anyone's name was not found written in
the Book of Life, he was thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is
the final eternal portion of the ungodly. But in all of these. Death is
a separation. Tearing apart. A dissolution. Physical death is a dissolution
of the body and soul. It tears apart body and soul.
It's a disintegration of the body. You are dust, and to dust,
you're going back. It's a disassociation. It's a dividing of relationships
from people that you know, from family and friends. Spiritual
death is a division of fellowship with God. Adam, out of the garden. You can't come back. God is not
your father. You're separated away. It's a
disillusion of the image of God's image in a person. We are image
bearers of God, but that image is perverted. We don't bear that
image rightly. So it's being dissolved. We're
not true image bearers of God anymore because of the spiritual
death and eternal death is a disconnection. It's a final separation. And
it's a disintegration of any and all hope, of all love and
all light, totally gone forever. But the good news is Christ has
conquered death, physical death, spiritual death, eternal death.
By the grace of God, sola gratia, through the atoning work of Jesus
Christ, solus Christus, and by faith, sola fide, sinners are
reconciled to God, we're given spiritual life. We attain resurrection
over physical death. We overcome it and we inherit
eternal life. That's victory over eternal death.
And lastly, I answer the question, what is death spiritually? And
this answers the question, why do Christians have to die? As
a believer, are you justified? Yeah, of course you are. Is there
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ? If Christ
has died for your sins and the penalty of sin is death, then
why must you die? Are your sins forgiven? Are you
justified? Well, then why must I die? This last question then, this
last point goes to that. Why? Spiritually, religiously,
death is the last earthly discipline for the believer. In a couple of weeks, you'll
be on question, we'll be on question 40 of the catechism. And the question, you'll know
it when you get there in a couple of weeks, the question 40 is, What benefits do believers receive
from Christ at death? The answer is, the souls of believers
are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately
pass in the glory. The Heidelberg Catechism, Dutch,
question 42, asks, since then Christ died for us, Why must
we also die? That's my question. The answer
they give is, our death is not a satisfaction for our sin, but
only a dying to sin and an entering into eternal life. A believer's death is not and
cannot be a payment or satisfaction for the righteous judgment of
God. That payment's made. I heard a statement, I think it
was this morning, might have been yesterday, could have been
last night, I don't know, I heard a statement about a man that
was dying and a preacher came to him and said, you need to
get right with God. He said, I can't do that, Christ
did that. Christ got me right. And I thought,
man, what an answer. What a wonderful answer. That's
the work of Christ. I can't make payment. I can't
make satisfaction. Christ does that. Christ alone satisfies the righteous
judgment of God. That's Christ. And so my death in no way is
an act of justification, but it is a part of sanctification.
It is a final step for the believer in our conformity to Christ,
and it's an entrance into glorification. Not the resurrection yet, but
it's an entrance, it's a way, it's a step in that direction. In this life, as long as I live,
and as long as you live, and as long as you draw breath, you
will struggle with sin. You ever get tired of it? How many times you have a besetting
sin? I know you do, because you're
a human being, even though you're a believer. And how many times have you sinned
and got, repent it, and sin again. And then you're just ashamed
to even ask God to forgive you. But you have to remind yourself,
if Christ told me to forgive my brother that sins against
me, the numbers really don't matter. The point is you just
keep forgiving. How many times does God forgive me? He's faithful and just to forgive
us. So I have to remind myself, even though I'm ashamed to ask
forgiveness, because I've asked so many times, and I've failed
so many times, and I'm tired of failing, and sometimes you
just get sick of it. Well, when are you gonna win
the victory? That's not to say that you don't
win small victories along the way. I'm not going to try to
say you can't ever win a victory. But I am going to say you're
never going to totally win the victory. Not in this life. Sorry, I wish I could tell you
you could. But you're not. Ever. But when will you? When will your spirit be completely
sanctified, or your soul, if you prefer? What is the point of discipline?
I want you to think of Hebrews
12 and think of it the way you think about it now, but I also
want you to think about it in a little different way, too.
Hebrews 12, it talks about the Lord disciplined every child
He receives. And if you don't receive discipline,
you're not a child of God. And the end result of discipline
is godliness, holiness, and it's not pleasant, but the end result
of it is godliness. And go to Hebrews. He says that it's for discipline
that you have to endure. It's verse 7. God is treating
you as a son. For what son? Is there whom his
father does not discipline? And you read on that section
about discipline, but it starts off with Christ and Jesus. Now,
he wasn't disciplined for sin, obviously, but just talking about
how Jesus was looking upward as he dealt with the offense
of sinners against him. And he said, no, you need to
do the same thing. You need to keep looking upward, heavenward, Christward. He says, that's what you need
to do. Fix your eyes on things above. Christ did that even as
he endured contradiction of sinners against himself. As he went to
the cross, he was fixed upon things above. Now you're dealing
with your own sin. You need to do the same thing. And then he gets down to verse
18, and he talks about the kingdom that we've come to. In verse
22, he says, but you've come to Mount Zion, to the city of
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an enumerable angels
and festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn
who enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to
the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Jesus, the mediator
of the covenant to sprinkle blood that speaks a better word than
the blood of Abel. Do you see that? To the assembly
of the firstborn who are rolled in heaven and to the God, the
judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, made perfect. That's the continued
context of discipline. This is our kingdom. In this life, we struggle with
sin and we shall until we die. But at our death, our sanctification
is completed. And our soul will at last be
purged of every vestige of sin. No more the image of the first
man, of the dust, Adam. But of the second man, Christ,
the heavenly. The dust, that will be consumed. It will be overcome
with the heavenly, and even in the glorification and the resurrection
of the body, that will be totally done away with in the sense that
it will be likened to Christ. Well, so much more on this could
be said, and I know I've left a lot of things unsaid, I want
you to think of this. Here's what I'm trying to communicate
to you today. Death is not my friend. It is
not part of a natural order. It is an enemy. It is painless
punishment. It's my enemy. It's a moral enemy.
It's not my buddy. It's not my pal. It's an enemy. It's punishment
God declared because of direct disobedience, and it was brought
upon mankind because of the sin of Adam, because of his disobedience.
It has both physical, spiritual, and eternal consequences. Therefore, there is no solution
to be found in humanity, none. The answer is not medical, not
science. It's not legal. The answers are
not there. It's not something to be toyed
with. It's not something to be flippant
with. It is an eternal consequence. And I implore when I hear it
being toyed with, and sentimentalized. It's not. It is an enemy. It is a punishment. And the answers and these people
today run around and finding the cure. They're going to live
forever. Fools. Because it is a sentence. Pronounced
by God. And the answer is found in Christ
and Christ alone. But Christ is the answer to physical,
spiritual, and eternal. Now for the believer, it's still
an enemy. It is an awful enemy. It's a
terrible enemy. But its fangs have been plucked
through Christ. And now in Christ, even though
it's an enemy and its fangs are plucked, it's awful. It now becomes
part of my sanctification, my completed progressive sanctification
of my spirit. That's when it finally sinned
and no longer has anything to do with me because of Christ. And it's then and then only that
my soul or my spirit will be made perfect. And that's why
sometimes we start longing longing for that, not because it's a
friend. No, it's still an enemy. It still
leaves a horrible wake. But for the believer, it becomes a means of perfection
to sinlessness through Christ. And so I want to end with a quote
by Lorraine Bettner. And with this, I hope that we
can set our minds on things that are above and not on things of
the earth. We know but very little about
what transpires on the other side of the grave. But of this
much we may be sure. And suddenly, at the moment of
death, all things appear in new perspectives. The one who is
called exchanges comparative darkness and limited knowledge
for new light, knowledge commiserate with his new estate. For now
we see in a mirror darkly, but then face to face. Now I know
in part, but then shall I know even fully even as I also was
fully known. The things that the person thought
important, his business affairs, the season's crops, tomorrow's
task, his success, and pleasing those around him, all of these
no longer matter at all. All of Earth's cares and problems
suddenly are left behind. And in their place, the things
to which he perhaps had given but little attention stand out
as all important. his attitude toward Christ, his
Christian witness to those about him, his prayer life, the motives
which underlay his public and private actions. He will then
see that the important thing was not how much he did or how
much he gave, but with what motives or with what purpose he acted.
He will wonder, not how much of his money he should have given
to the Lord, but why he withheld so much of the Lord's money for
himself. He will see that no material possessions really belong
to him, that all the money and lands and other possessions really
belong to the Lord, and that he was only a steward to whom
their management was entrusted temporarily. Five minutes after
he's in heaven, he will be overwhelmed by truths that he had known all
along, but somehow had never fully grasped. He will wish with
all his heart now, I know there's no sadness, and so understand
the way he's writing this, okay? He will understand, he will wish
with all his heart that he could recall just 100th part of the
time that he let slip through his fingers, that he could recall
the lost opportunities that presented themselves for the Lord's service
and for the better living. And from the fields that were
widened to harvest, He had led many more souls to salvation.
He will wish that he had gained a much fuller knowledge of divine
truth as it is set forth in the Bible. So that is the knowledge
that he will then live by. And he will wish that in his
Bible study, he had made much fuller acquaintance with the
Old Testament and New Testament saints. In his company, he will
find himself. Many will be saved, no doubt,
so as through fire, saved, but entering heaven practically bankrupt,
their lives work like wood, a stubble, having been burned. They will
loom up before him the endless possibilities of the heavenly
life, and they will blossom forth with his own being, which was
created in the image of God, a thousand new talents and powers,
all unsuspected, these to develop and grow and to be his possession
forever and ever. I don't know. But I think that
whatever there is, it will be sinless. It will be the spirits
of just people, men, women made perfect. And all the sorrows,
troubles and disappointments, difficulties, sadnesses of this
life will be gone in a moment. There'll be no more tears, no
more sorrows, no more regrets. And with that, set your mind
on things that are above, not on things on the earth. Let's
pray. Father, we read in Genesis of this awful
curse, this awful judgment, and realize it is our judgment. It
is our curse. For we too have sinned against
you willingly. We have known your commandments. We know them
now, and we yet transgress them. We break them willingly. We do
it like we drink water. We do it moment by moment. We
do it day by day. We cannot say that we do not
know. We cannot say that we're not guilty. We are guilty. And
we stand rightly judged and rightly condemned. And we know that the wages of
sin is death, and we know that that is our judgment. And we're grateful. Grateful
is not even a strong enough word. How can we express ourselves?
What can we say? We who are condemned, we who
have the sentence over our heads, waiting to be executed at any
moment, we know not when. It could be this day, it could
be tomorrow, it could be 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, who knows?
The sentence is there. And it's justly ours. By your grace and your mercy
through Christ our Lord. That which is our condemnation,
our ruin, our end. Through our savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who has the keys of death and hell has reigned. He has broken the teeth of death.
He's crushed the head of Satan. He's risen from the dead. And we through him live. We in him
live. We by him live. And even though
our bodies to the dust shall return, yet one day we know they
shall be resurrected in his power, in his glory, in his likeness. And even though at death this
body and the spirit shall be torn apart, even then we know
our spirit shall once be transported into your presence and sin, our
acquaintance that we've known for many, many years shall no
more have any say, desire, praise, presence in our being, that it
shall forever be banned shall be forever removed from our very
essence and being, from our desire, from our knowledge, from our
power to commit. Thank you, Lord, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, for the great salvation that is ours. Not only
that you have provided, but that you have secured upon the cross,
and that you have applied to us, Holy Spirit, through your
powerful work, that you have sealed us into that day of redemption.
Cause your people to rejoice, even though we've looked at the
dark subject. May we not spend our time in
the catacombs, but in the halls of glory themselves. The more there are those present
that know not Christ, There is unrepented sin in their life.
Yes, Lord. And may this be the time that
their eyes look to Christ and their hearts call out. Oh, Lord,
our God. May your name be praised now
and forever through Jesus Christ, our Lord, I pray. Amen.
Death
Series Eschatology
1st of 4 sermons on eschatology. This sermon deals with the subject of death.
| Sermon ID | 112121213152990 |
| Duration | 1:03:04 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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