little ones here today. All right. Well, today is going to be a little bit different than a normal Sunday morning. I don't know that we know what a normal Sunday morning is here, but Whatever it is, this won't be it. We're going to, if you've been here very long, you've noticed we have some worksheets out there on the table. They're all titled, What the Bible Teaches Concerning. And we've talked about abortion. We've talked about socialism versus capitalism. We've talked about self-defense. We've talked about hell, baptism. We've talked about a lot of different subjects, and we've done it in such a way that I make up these notes and you guys can access those anytime. We've done alcohol, lots of things where you can take that with you and use that as a reminder of what the Bible teaches or as a tool to help teach somebody else what the Bible teaches. And so far, it's been pretty well received. Many of you have utilized that quite a bit, and that's a blessing. Today, our topic kind of spawns from the salvation series we've done in Sunday School, where we've been diving deeper into the doctrines and the different truths about salvation. And a couple of different people have asked me this question recently, and I've been asked it many times before, about what happens when we die. Now, the Christian, the quick answer is, well, we go to heaven. Or, well, they go to hell, or, you know, heaven or hell. And we understand that. Heaven or hell, there's no other option. We get that. That's not the topic today. The topic today is procedurally what specifically happens to a person when they die. And so today we're going to be going over that together at the end of the service. The notes will be out there for you if you'd like to take them. This is one of those topics where it's, you know, for some people it may seem very, very elementary. You may think, I've known this since a child. That's great, good for you. For some people, they might think, you know, I think I know the answer here, but I can't defend it by the Bible. For some people, they may have never thought about it. And so if you think this is really easy stuff, good for you, that's fine, but just bear with us today, and we'll go through this together. There's actually several different teachings about what happens when somebody dies what happens their body their soul and all that different fit all those different things We're gonna do what we always try to do here and we're gonna just see from the Bible what happens when someone dies So we'll pray and then we'll dive right in Lord. We thank you for this day. Thank you for your word Help us now as we study it together help me to preach it and teach it in a way that pleases you and Lord help us to to know the truth as As we should we love you in Jesus and we pray amen Now, you'll probably be familiar with some of these terms. When it comes to when somebody dies, the easy answer is, well, they go to heaven or, well, they go to hell or whatever. But there are other teachings out there. Purgatory was one that the Catholic Church taught up until recently. And that was a very promoted, very popular belief that there was this intermediary place that you would go when you would die to kind of finish being made pure, being made righteous before moving on to heaven. Actually, Islam has a very similar belief in teaching where they teach and they believe or teach, or at least they're Holy Book says that all people will go to hell first, and then depending on how good or bad of a Muslim you were, you'll end up in heaven sooner or later based on that. So most religions of the world teach some form of punishment before glorification, or some form of time spent serving your sentence, as it were. And that kind of goes along with the idea of purgatory, which is no longer even taught. But then we also have a belief called soul sleep. This belief is that it's taught by Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, Church of God, some Lutheran synods, and a mixture of other denominations of Christianity. This belief and teaching is that essentially when you die, you just go into this state of unconsciousness until Judgment Day, and you're just kind of there in the grave, you don't know what's going on, and then just poof, it's Judgment Day. And I understand that. So, you know, purgatory, a lot of people believed in that, and I understand that, why that, they were raised that way. The Bible teaches us in Hebrews 10 that Jesus Christ's payment for sin was once for all. and that His death on the cross of Calvary, His blood suffice to pay for all our sins, that contradicts purgatory right there. I don't have any more sins that I need to pay for myself. I don't have any time to serve. My God saved me completely. I am saved to the uttermost when I trust in Jesus Christ, and so are you if you trust in Jesus Christ. There's no more offering for sin, the Bible says. It's already been made. So that's easy. That's out of the way. But the soul sleep one, I get why more people kind of have that idea because it's taught by different groups, but also because there's some verses in the Bible that I can see where they would get that idea. And so we're going to look at this from the Bible perspective and examine it together. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 4. 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. I hope your fingers are warmed up this morning. We are going to be turning our Bibles quite a bit and I'm gonna be moving kind of fast and I'm doing that because I don't want to go way over but if I move too fast everybody be mad at me because I went too fast and so I'm trying to balance it today and we're gonna get through a lot of this together and I think if you're if you find yourself falling behind turning somewhere that's alright you can just listen and and go back later. 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13. We find this great passage here in the Word of God. The Bible says here, 1 Thessalonians 4, But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you, by the word of God, that we which are alive and remain under the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another, with these words. Now what we just read is that glorious rapture of the church, that blessed hope that we have of Christ coming back and meeting us in the air and calling us up to glory. And the Bible teaches and tells us that that could be today. It could be a thousand years from now. It could be today. We do not know. Trump's gonna sound and we're gonna get out of here. I pray that it's today and we don't have to work Can you imagine not having to go back to work tomorrow? Not have to hear all the filthy language and all the filthy talk and deal with one more political ad. I mean, come on We would not be too upset if we just got to go to be and be with our God in heaven today if you would rather be here than in heaven, then you don't know what heaven is and You have not studied your Bible enough. You need to get in there and see. It's much better than here. And so I would not complain one bit if that's happened today. But what we do see here is something that is pretty important in our study. We see here in verse 16, we see death. And we see verses 14 and 15, sleep. And we see them used synonymously. In John 11, 11, we read, "...these things said he, and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." Now we know from the story that Lazarus was dead. He said, he's asleep, but I'm going to go wake him up. Now in Mark 5, the same terminology is used concerning Jairus' daughter. He arrives and he says, Oh, don't be upset. She's just sleeping. And everybody laughs him to scorn. In 1 Timothy 5, it's important to note, verse 6 in 1 Timothy 5.6, the Bible says, "...but she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." So we have sleep and death used synonymously in different passages, and we have death used in a way that is not always indicative of a physical state. Is everybody with me so far? Okay, some of you are looking at me like, I don't know, you lost me at hello. Alright, so we have death is not always referring to a physical being dead, and we have sleep and death being used interchangeably. So if sleep and death are used interchangeably, what do we make of this? Does this support soul sleep? Well, in order to answer that, we've got to go back in our minds and remember that when God made man, he made us in whose image? His image. And what is His image? Well, it doesn't look like me, and it probably doesn't look like you. We all look different. So how are we made in the image of God? Well, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Man has body, soul, spirit. We are a tripartite being just like God is in Trinity. Now, believing that and understanding that helps us to understand the rest of the lesson today. Because just as God the Father can be seated at His throne in heaven while Christ, God the Son, is hanging on the cross on earth, We can certainly have our soul and our spirit in heaven while our body is in the grave on the earth. It's the same concept. But if you don't connect the dots of the tripartite being, then it's easy to go into the soul sleep mentality. The problem with the soul sleep, though, is something we're going to see in just a moment. For now, we won't go there for time's sake, but Ecclesiastes 12.7 tells us that the body turns to dust, the spirit returns to God who gave it, saved or lost, and the soul, as we know from many scriptures, either goes to heaven or hell. And though our bodies become dust, there still are The Bible says, the dead in Christ shall rise. There's some dead that have been dead long enough that, you know, they're gone. You think about Lazarus's sister, when Christ went to raise him from the dead, he said, roll away the stone. And what did she say? Lord, he's stinking. Because that's what happens with our bodies. They just go away. They decay. They get old. They die. You say, well, how are we going to raise up at the last day? Well, how did God make man? Out of what? The dust of the earth. Could He not resurrect us up out of dust if we've been dead for 5,000 years when He comes back? You say, well, I don't believe that. That's fine. It's not something we have to break fellowship with or can't be friends. It's okay. It's all right. We don't have to agree on every little thing. But I believe God can take someone who's, you know, if you died in a fire and there's nothing left of you, the Bible says that we're going to be resurrected. I believe that'll happen. Now you say, how? Well, ask the Lord. He did it before, He can do it again. 1 Corinthians 13, 12 gives us some insight into this, that we will appear the way we appear now. The Bible says, but then shall I know even as I am known. The teaching that when we are in heaven, we're going to be able to recognize one another. We're going to look somewhat like we look today, which will be kind of nice, because if we all look exactly the same, it'd be a little confusing. Now, you say, well, I thought I was going to be angel's wings and all that. That's not in the Bible. That's just in the stories and in the poems and all that. You're not going to have wings, and you're not going to fly around like an angel. You're going to get a glorified body, which is even better. It's even better. In Christ, in His glorified body, He could just show up in a room with all the doors and windows shut. He could disappear out of people's presence. Wouldn't that be nice sometimes? Anybody ever been in a situation where you're like, I wish I could just disappear right now? Some of you are right there right now. I wish I could just be home eating my meal right now. That's something that Christ was able to do in His glorified body, and we know that we look forward to the same. Now, this is the reason, though, why we cannot say that our souls sleep in the grave, why we must separate soul from body and say, OK, our bodies sleep in the grave and await the judgment, but our soul does not, because if we believe that, then we're contradicting other Scriptures. And if we believe the Bible is perfect and without error, which it is, then if our belief contradicts or makes two Scriptures contradict themselves, then we've got to figure out what we're missing. So turn with me to Luke 23 and Luke 16. We'll give you two examples of things in the Bible that would not make any sense if soul sleep was, in fact, what happens. Luke 23 and Luke 16. In Luke 23 and verse number 43, we have here Christ is on the cross. He's speaking to one of the malefactors, one of the thieves on the cross. The Bible says, And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Now, the Lord did not tell him, today you're going to go in the grave and at some point you're going to wake up and we're going to be together. He said, today you're going to be with me in paradise. Now, what the Jehovah's Witness Bible and other Bibles have done is they've moved the comma from after thee to after today, trying to change the immediacy of the statement. They tried to change it to, verily I say unto thee today, like I'm talking today, someday you'll be with me in paradise. But that's not what the Bible says. The comma is in the place it's supposed to be in, in the King James Bible. And so, Jesus told the thief on the cross, today you're going to be with me in paradise, and we know that that came to pass. Look with me at Luke chapter 16. Luke 16. Now before we get into this story, I want to remind everyone, those who do not like the idea of a real literal hell, have propagated the idea that this is a parable. They say, well that's just a parable, or that's just an allegory, or whatever they want to call it. But I'll remind you that Jesus Christ never once uses a name in a parable. He always says a certain woman or a certain man, and in this story, he uses a name. And most parables, the Bible specifies that he's teaching in a parable or speaking in a parable. Here, he does not say that. This is a recollection of an actual event. Luke 16, starting in verse 19. The Bible says, "...there was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Now, if we just died and waited until the judgment to wake up, then this doesn't make sense because he's already waking up. His eyes are already open. He's already realizing, I'm in hell. Verse number 24, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I'm tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one of them went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto them, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded that one rose from the dead. So here we have two men who die and are immediately in their location. We have paradise and we have hell. Now we've talked before about paradise. It's now in heaven. It's different. Paradise was where people who died in faith before Christ made the atonement for sin would go to wait for Christ's blood to be atoned. That's a topic for another day. We've already covered that. But what we see here is we have no indication of any time lapse. and we have the man claiming, my brothers are still alive and they need to hear this. So we have nothing to tell us that any time has gone by, and so if what happens when I die is that I go into an unconscious state and wait for however many thousands of years before Judgment Day, then this passage doesn't make sense. This passage couldn't be true, because it speaks of something that has already happened. Now, okay, how do we rectify this? If these references were to speak of our souls and not our bodies, we have a problem, right? We have contradictions in Scripture. But if we say, okay, when it talks about sleeping in the grave, it's talking about the part of me that is this body, this flesh, now we don't have a contradiction in Scripture anymore. We actually have some more evidence to see that further proves this point. Turn with me to 1 Peter 1 and Romans 8. 1 Peter 1, Romans 8. Told you we'd be turning our Bibles a lot. I'm a man of my word. At least when it comes to this, right? 1 Peter 1 and Romans 8. I try to be. The Bible is specific about our bodies. It has some certain verses about our bodies and about redemption. So we need to understand and kind of compare this. Studies like this remind us how important it is to believe and study the whole Bible. Because if you don't believe in the Trinity, then the truth we have here isn't going to make sense for you. And if you don't believe in the deity of Christ, then this isn't going to work out. If you don't believe in heaven and hell... So you have to read it and believe it all. Or you start having some trouble. But if you read and believe it all, it all works together. 1 Peter 1, verse 18. The Bible says, "...for as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition of your fathers." Of course, it goes on, but with the precious blood of Christ. The point here is, we've been redeemed. If you're saved today, if you've trusted Christ as your Savior, the Bible says you have been redeemed. You are redeemed. There's a lot of verses in the Bible that use the present tense of our salvation, that we are saved and we have been redeemed and all this. But now go with me over to Romans 8, and we'll see a little interesting detail here. Romans 8, verse 23. The Bible says, "...and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." So I'm redeemed, 1 Peter, but my body is not yet redeemed, Romans 8. You say, well, how can that be? Well, glad you asked. because Jesus Christ saves our soul, not our body. Now, our body is going to be changed, our body is going to be redeemed, as Romans 8 tells us, it just has not happened yet. So, another place, 2 Corinthians 5, just a few pages over from there, 2 Corinthians 5. The Bible says in Philippians 3.21, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body? We're going to get a new body one day. Praise the Lord. I don't know about you, but I'm already getting tired of mine. Because it's getting tired too often. It's just, these bodies, they just wear away. They wear away. Some of you have had some terrible health troubles this year, and that's just how these bodies are. And thank the Lord, we're going to get new ones. It's going to be glorified. Our bodies are going to be changed. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, starting in verse number 1. We'll read quite a few verses here, but it's because it's all very necessary to our study. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle..." Let's talk about our body. "...our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. "...for we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." Essentially, this old body is mortal. We are looking forward to that body that is new, that is immortal, that is going to be in heaven. "...Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing as God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. Now, you can interpret that whatever way you want, but I think that means if I'm not in this body, I'm within. Seems pretty simple. It doesn't mean if I'm not in this body, I'm sleeping and waiting in an unconscious state. No, if I'm absent from my body, if I have died, then I'm present with the Lord. The Bible teaches and tells us that when we die, our spirit and our soul leave our body. And so, if I'm not in my body anymore, and I'm present with the Lord, then I can't be waiting around. We already read Philippians 3.21, where these bodies are going to be redeemed, they're going to be glorified, we're going to be changed, as another scripture says. And so the teaching that we have here, when we combine 2 Corinthians 5.8, Luke 16, Luke 23, and many other passages, we find that upon death the body sleeps in the grave, awaiting the first resurrection, while the spirit and soul do not. That's the only solution we can have that doesn't cause contradictions in Scripture. That's the only solution we can have that fits every which way into the Bible accurately. Christ himself is another example. Think about the Lord. We've had whole sermons on what the Lord did while he was dead, right? His body was in the tomb, and yet he went and got the keys of hell and of death. He went and set the captives free in paradise. He was pretty busy all while his body was in the grave. He wasn't sitting in an unconscious state. You say, well, that's the Lord. That's not fair. I understand. We'll get another example. Deuteronomy 34, you find the death of Moses. The death of Elijah comes hundreds of years before Christ. And yet in Matthew 17 at the Mount of Transfiguration, the apostles are there and Christ is there. And guess what? The Bible says, Behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with them. So Moses and Elias weren't sleeping. They were there. They were there talking with them. Here's the reason I think that there's some people that are hesitant about believing that we immediately go to heaven or hell when we die. It's usually, in my experience, because they either have a lack of understanding or a misconception about heaven and hell or judgments. And I'm not faulting people, I'm just saying there's a lot of false information out there. There's a lot of fake news out there when it comes to the Bible. The truth of the matter is, though, a lot of people assume that the judgment of sinner or saved is yet to take place. It's some future thing. Well, I'm going to stand before God and plead my case. That's just not true. John 3.18 says, "...he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." In John 5.24 we read, "...verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath," present tense, everlasting life, "...and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." So when I am saved, I have passed from death unto life, I am saved, I am redeemed, I am born again. My body is not yet, but my soul is. But before that point, I'm condemned. I stand condemned in my sin. It's not some judgment that's going to take place someday. And I'll show you that because in the Bible, in the judgments in Revelation, these future judgments that we think about, the judgment seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment, those are works-based judgments. If we believe our Bibles, salvation is not by our works. And so that's where you could get to that verse in Revelation and say, wait, they were judged according to their works? I thought salvation was with grace through faith. It is. That judgment is not about saved or lost. That judgment is made the moment you either accept or reject Christ. As long as you're alive, as long as you're breathing, you have the opportunity to accept Christ and have that condemnation changed. But if you don't, it's not going to be a judgment one day of, well, are you going to accept Christ? At that point, it's too late. The judgment is going to be, okay, how severe is this punishment going to be? How good is this heaven going to be? It's going to be rewards and punishment. You say the punishment is the same. Yeah, everybody goes to the same place. But if we have different varying degrees of rewards in heaven, it would stand to reason that there's different varying degrees of punishment in hell and in the lake of fire. That's a sermon for another day. But if you'll go with me a couple more places, I want to make sure we back this all up with Bible. John chapter 5 and Revelation chapter 20. John 5, Revelation 20. I'm not giving anybody a chance to fall asleep today. We're returning to our Bible's law. John 5, Revelation 20. In John 5, verse 28, we'll start there. The Bible says, "...Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth. They that have done good under the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." So we have already been judged in our life. Have I accepted Christ or not? Okay, I've died. Now I'm either securing Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and going to heaven to await the judgment, or I have rejected Christ and I'm going to hell to await the judgment. You say, well, don't you have to be judged before you go to heaven or hell? Nope, because that's... we'll get there. So John 5 tells us there's resurrection. First resurrection is for judgment. For some, it's for evil. For some, it's for good. Verse number 12, we read here, And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." What we have here is this great white throne judgment where hell itself is cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. And all those who have rejected Christ are judged based upon their works, and they are cast into the lake of fire with hell and death for all eternity. And we find in 2 Corinthians 5 10 the Bible says for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and And in 2nd Corinthians the we is Christians because the whole book of 2nd Corinthians is written to the church We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in his body according that he hath done whether it be good or bad That's the save being judged for their rewards. You think about rewards in heaven, you've got Matthew 5.12, Matthew 10.42, Luke 6.23, 1 Corinthians 3.8, 3.14, Revelation 22.12. There's a lot of verses that talk about a believer getting rewards or earning crowns. There's five crowns that we can earn as believers. There's rewards. The Bible says to lay up for yourself treasure in heaven. And that's not just filler. That's there for a reason. The Lord tells us that we can earn rewards based on what we do here on this earth. So the lost will be judged one day based on their works. The saved will be judged one day based on their works. These judgments are not heaven or hell. These judgments are how enjoyable is heaven going to be? How much more reward are you going to have? We say, well, it's just going to be good enough to get there. Agree, I'm much. I'm much rather go there than up up and down right I'd much rather go to heaven than hell, but if there's rewards from God that are eternal wouldn't you want them I? Mean come on You say heaven's gonna be greater. We can ever imagine it is and then some people are gonna have rewards on top of that I Don't want to I don't want to miss out on that I want to try and earn reward and that's taught all throughout the Bible now I Keeping it keep in mind another thing. This is what trips people up all these different things You have to believe all these things put together To get a clear picture the heaven that we refer to now the heaven that exists now is temporary It's not the heaven of eternity. You say why you know, maybe you knew that hell wasn't eternity Hell was gonna be cast like a fire and that's eternity. It's the same thing with heaven The heaven that is now is going to be destroyed by God, and there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible teaches this in Revelation 21. We're in Revelation 20. Let's just read it. Revelation 21, verse number 1. The Bible says, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away." That's what we want, right? That's what we're looking forward to. But if you go back and read from verse 1, heaven is gone, there's a new heaven and a new earth, and where are we going to live? That holy city, that New Jerusalem, where is it? Down on the new earth. So we talk about going up to heaven, which is accurate today, but for eternity, according to the Bible, we're not going to be up in space somewhere, we're going to be on the new earth in the New Jerusalem. That's one of those things where people are like, what? And they think I'm teaching some crazy, weird doctrine because they haven't heard it before. It's right there. It's been there all along. And so, you know, I would still say, yeah, go up, go down. That's all fine. Because until that day, until the Lord dissolves this place in fervent heat, as the Bible says, there is a heaven up there that we go to to await the judgment. And there is a hell down there that we go to to await the judgment. But one day it's going to be lake of fire. Or it's going to be the heavenly, the new Jerusalem here on a new earth. And I can't imagine. I mean, do you think about the amazing things that God has created on this earth and the beauty that is in this earth? Imagine when God remakes it and makes it new and there's no more sin to corrupt it. So I want to summarize this as we're running out of time here. An order of events. When a lost man dies, his spirit returns to God and his soul immediately wakes in hell. That is where he will stay and wait until the Great White Throne Judgment, which takes place at the end of the Millennial reign of Christ, and at that day, body, soul, spirit reunited to stand before God and be judged according to the works written in the books, and then cast in a lake of fire. That's the lost. That's the person who dies without Christ. For the saved person, When a saved man dies, a spirit returns to God, his soul goes to heaven to await the resurrection for the judgment seat of Christ immediately following the seven years of tribulation. This is where the Christian works will be tried, as stated in 1 Corinthians 3, 11-15, where the Bible talks about wood, hay, and stubble, and precious stones, and our works being burned up, or those that aren't burned up will receive a reward. and yet they'll be saved. And so the Christian, when we die, we wait in heaven for the judgment of Christ, and then it's New Jerusalem and all that stuff. For the lost person, when they die, they wait in hell for their judgment, and then it's like a fire and all that stuff. There is no second chance. There is no break. It's just straight to those, I guess you could say, holding periods or holding areas. That's why it is so important that we get the Gospel to people because there is no second chance. There is no future judgment of sin. They stand condemned before God right now. If you've not trusted Christ as your Savior, if you're trusting in your baptism, or you're trusting in your church membership, or you're an atheist, or whatever it may be, the Bible says you stand condemned right now. If that person that doesn't trust Christ takes their last breath right now, they're going to wake up in hell, and it's done. The only judgment they have left is just, how terrible is it going to be? There is no, can I get out of this? On the flip side, the person who is saved, the Bible says there's no more condemnation. The only judgment we face is, okay, do you get some rewards on top of all this good stuff? Do you get some extra icing on your cake? That's what we want. And that's what we've been promised by God. But that's why it's so urgent that we get the gospel out to the people of this world, because there's so many false beliefs of, well, I'm just gonna go sleep for a little while, I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna plead my case before God. Or I'm gonna wake up and there's gonna be a scale of good and bad. You remember a while back we were preaching out of Ezekiel, and the Bible, I forget the verse reference off the top of my head, the Bible specifically says that all the good that we have done, won't come to mind. It won't even be brought up. There is no good versus bad. Because the judgment is on sin. We use the analogy, if you go to trial for murder, the judge doesn't care how good of a person you've been. It's are you guilty of murder or are you not guilty of murder? And so a lot of people have these false conceptions about eternity, have these false conceptions about what happens when a person dies, and it gives them a false hope. And we don't want to go around crushing people's hopes, but that's what's best if their hope is going to lead them to hell. We need to go around and tell people, hey, this is the truth. There is a heaven. There is a hell. There is a lake of fire. There is a New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ came. There was sin. We are all sinners. The Bible gives us very clear. You can just use three verses. Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That's all of us. We've all sinned. We've all come short of the glory of God. Romans 6.23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the bad news and the good news right together in one verse. But how do we get that eternal life? Romans 10.9, that thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Nothing else. That's it. And so understanding what happens when a person dies is important for us because for one, it's good to just know the truth from the Word of God. It's good to be able to defend your faith and defend your beliefs to those who would criticize or attack them. And even more important, everything we can know about eternity, we ought to know so that we can be better witnesses to those who are facing eternity and hell in the lake of fire. So we can do our best to show them that this is what awaits, but this is what Jesus Christ did for you, so you don't have to experience it. That's what we ought to be doing as Christians. That's what we ought to do with this information that we've been given. I don't know if I did this in a way that made it make sense to you, I don't know if I went too fast or too slow, or if you think I'm just a crazy person. But I hope that some of this, maybe it was new to you, maybe it was not, I hope it's been a help. I hope it's something we can use to lead other people to Christ. and to make a difference for eternity. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. Lord, this is not some hoorah message that we can get behind and shout amen to. It's a lesson, Lord. It's just teaching from your word and pure and simple. And Lord, I pray, please help us to take this teaching from your word and Lord, to believe what your word tells us and to use that faith that you've given us, that belief that you've given us in your word to be better witnesses to others Lord, let us not be argumentative or attacking, but Lord, help us to, in love, out of a genuine concern for souls, try to teach people and tell people the truth concerning their eternity and where they stand before God today. Lord, we want to see sinners saved, and we know that you do too. We pray that you help us to that end in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Brother Ken. We'll stand together and sing page 311. The altar is always open. Maybe you have somebody that you know that isn't saved and you want to pray for them. Maybe you don't know for sure if you're going to heaven when you die.